Rapist used social media to target women

ARROGANT PREDITOR STRUCK AT HIS SALON ON MUTLEY PLAIN

- By CARL EVE

Ricky Stubberfield, jailed for 26 years at Plymouth Crown Court

(Devon & Cornwall Police)

RICKY Stubberfield, who was jailed this week for 26 years for multiple rapes and sexual assaults on women, presented himself as a cheeky chappy, a ‘Jack the lad’ character, a bit coarse and saucy, but not lecherous, more of a diamond-in-the-rough, a bit of a bad boy but not so bad as you’d think - but it wasn’t true.

In court he tried to convince a jury that a string of women - and girls - were all lying about being raped or groped or that they did not want to admit what he believed - that it was all entirely consensual.

He'd put it down to his ADHD, his gregarious nature, of being flirtatious and risqué, of being a bit of a lad, of them being up for it, or of them colluding against him with lies to benefit themselves.

There was even a suggestion at one point during the trial, at Plymouth Crown Court, that perhaps one of his 16-year-old accusers had herself been behaving in a “slutty” manner and that the casual sexual touching he was accused of at his place of business - a teeth whitening and tanning salon on Mutley Plain - was merely in the course of the sexualised banter he indulged in.

A jury of 10 men and one woman saw through him - even though it is unlikely any of them saw the words “smile after every question” that he'd written on his hand before he entered the witness box, which was spotted by the detective who investigated the sickening offences he had committed over a period of 11 years.

Ricky Stubberfield, of Walnut Gardens, Plympton, was arrested on June 9th last year following inquiries by police after a number of complaints from women. He was initially charged with eight counts of sexual touching, relating to three different woman, and appeared at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on June 11th.