Serial rapist who was allowed to take 12 ecstasy tablets each fortnight before absconding from 'secure' hospital and attacking eight women in a three-day rampage of sexual violence is sentenced to life

A drug-addicted rapist who went on a three-day rampage of sexual violence against eight women after absconding from a secure hospital regularly smuggled class A drugs into the facility, it has emerged.

Louis Collins, 29, was yesterday jailed for life with a minimum of 12 years and 20 weeks after admitting 27 charges including rape, attempted rape and sexual assault.

His sickening spree took place after he walked unescorted out of Lambeth Hospital, where he was serving a hospital order handed down in 2020 following a string of other serious sexual offences.

Between August 18 and 21 last year, Collins carried out terrifying attacks against eight women including the rape of a jogger at knifepoint in a park, attempted rape of a woman he followed from a bus and attempted rape of a woman in the communal entrance to her flat.

Collins told psychiatrists that when he took drugs he heard voices telling him to grope girls, his sentencing heard.

 And judge Simon Heptonstall said despite the fact that he was sent to Lambeth Hospital by a court following serious offending, he was able to use his unescorted leave to buy Class A drugs that worsened his condition.

'You were using drugs at the time of these offences,' he told Kingston Crown Court.

'You had been getting 12 ecstasy tablets each fortnight while at the hospital. You were smoking cannabis.'

Collins, originally from Croydon in south London, began offending in 2010 when he was caught with cannabis aged 15, before being arrested carrying a knife days later.

His first sexual assault came in 2015 when he was jailed for eight months for three indecent exposure offences.

Collins' sexual offending and drug use continued to escalate upon his release, and he committed 15 sexual offences between 2016 and 2019, culminating in a three-day rampage when he committed three sexual assaults.

These included groping a 14-year-old schoolgirl in McDonalds then grabbing a woman's buttock.

The offences led to the hospital order being handed down in April 2020 – but Collins was deemed safe for unescorted leave and embarked on a sickening three days of violence in August last year before he was captured.

He groped a woman on the escalator at Clapham Common, south London, on August 18, grabbing her bottom and rubbing himself against her.

The victim later said the assault made her feel sick and the trauma has meant she has had to ask her partner to stop touching her without warning.

'In the days following the attack I couldn't stop thinking about the grope of this man's penis between my legs,' she said.

'I don't think I will ever be able to erase what this man did to me from my mind.'

On August 20, he was seen masturbating in the street before chasing a law student into her apartment as she walked home from university, forcing his way in as she used her fob to open the door.

He chased her up the stairs, wrapped an arm around her throat to choke her before thrusting his hand up her skirt and demanding that she perform oral sex, before she escaped.

Shortly after midnight, Collins struck again in Earl's Court, west London, when he chased a woman until she found shelter in a convenience store.

Later that evening, Collins dragged a woman he had followed from a bus to the pavement in Willesden, northwest London, punching her in the face, kissing her and demanding oral sex as he pulled his penis from his trousers.

The attack only stopped when a neighbour named Mike Kirby chased him away with a baseball bat.

Collins next attacked a hospital worker as she travelled by bus to the Royal Brompton Hospital in west London.

He pointed a knife at her stomach and shouted 'sit down and don't shout or I will slash you' but was interrupted by a security guard.

His final attack, in Marble Hill Park in Twickenham, southwest London, was his most horrific, Patricia May, prosecuting, said.

Collins punched a lone female jogger in the side of the head, threatened her with a knife and a broken bottle and said: 'Don't scream – nobody's going to help you.'

He then dragged her towards a fence, ripped her clothes off and subjected her to an hour-long ordeal.

A spokesman for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Lambeth Hospital, said: 'We strongly support the court's decision today in sentencing Louis Collins who pleaded guilty to all charges. These are appalling crimes, and our thoughts are with the victims and their families.

'We have completed a thorough internal investigation and continue to do our utmost to improve our services.'

Judge Heptonstall told Collins: 'Your behaviour was the stuff of nightmares for all women and their families.'

The tall, long-haired rapist, who wore a prison issue grey tracksuit to court, gave the judge the thumbs up as he was led down to the cells.