Life for ‘monster’ who murdered 94-year-old widow
Undated handout photo issued by West Yorkshire Police of Scott Sorby, 21, who has been told today he must serve a minimum of 24 years in prison after he sexually assaulted and murdered a 94-year-old woman after breaking into a care home. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday February 3, 2012. A judge told Sorby, he had committed a "truly dreadful" act against Elizabetta Pecka in a "prolonged and ferocious physical attack" in her room. See PA story COURTS Pensioner. Photo credit should read: West Yorkshire Police/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.
A VIOLENT sex offender has been jailed for life for breaking into a care home and murdering an elderly resident after absconding from his probation hostel.
Scott Sorby, 21, had been freed from a four-and-a-half year prison sentence for the attempted rape of a student and was on licence when he absconded from the Elm Bank hostel in Cleckheaton, last January.
By the time police found him five days later he had committed burglaries, robberies and thefts and broken into the Rosewood Court care home, Bradford, where he attacked 94-year-old Elizabetta Pecka.
Mrs Pecka was found in a pool of blood in a bathroom after being sexually attacked and beaten. A chair had been wedged under the handle of a door leading to the room.
She sustained fractured cheek bones, eye sockets and neck bones, and extensive bruising, and died in hospital two months later.
On Friday at Bradford Crown Court Sorby, who had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to murder, attempted rape, burglaries, robberies and thefts, was told he would serve a minimum of 24 years.
The court heard he had initially denied attempting to rape his victim but admitted it in two letters he wrote while on remand, in which he described himself as “a monster”.
He wrote: “I knew she was completely innocent but I could not think straight. All I wanted to do was hurt her.
“I will never forgive myself for what I did, I will never forget the image of standing over that poor woman covered in blood, looking like a monster, looking like evil.”
Staff discovered Mrs Pecka covered in blood and she told paramedics: “They are animals who did this to me. Let me die, they have treated me like a dog.”
Sentencing Sorby, who is from Bradford, Mr Justice King said it was a ‘monstrous” crime on a vulnerable old lady.
“The psychiatric report supports the view that you are evidently a damaged individual with a mixed personality disorder,” he said.
West Yorkshire Probation Trust said probation hostels enforced curfews from 11pm-6am but they were unable to monitor offenders 24 hours a day.
Operations director Mark Siddall said: “It is extremely rare for an offender under our supervision to commit a serious crime, but every case is one too many. Supervision can minimise the risk presented by an offender, but it can never be entirely eliminated.”
Mr Siddall added that risk management and offender supervision at bail hostels was reviewed regularly and lessons learned from serious incidents were immediately implemented.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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