A dangerous and disturbed sex attacker who has twice been convicted of manslaughter was jailed for just six years last week for a horrifying attack on a young woman in Croydon.

The young victim fled the court in tears on hearing the custodial sentence meted out to Donald Andrews, 39, after he beat her unconscious and sexually assaulted her.

The 28-year-old woman was left with 42 separate injuries after Andrews viciously attacked her following a night out in central Croydon last May.

He chatted to the woman, who cannot be named, at gay nightclub The Cage after friends she had arranged to meet didn't turn up.

Andrews lulled his victim into a false sense of security by telling her he was gay before offering to walk her home.

She accepted the offer of an escort but as they walked down Park Lane Andrews dragged her into an alley and unleashed a sickening attack on her, indecently assaulting her before beating her unconscious.

Investigating Detective Sergeant Peter Quinn, from Croydon's Sapphire Unit, said: "She felt that because it was a gay bar and she was with a gay man she was safe and when he offered to walk her home she accepted."

At Andrews' sentencing last Friday (January 3) it emerged that the loner had a string of previous violent convictions, including two for manslaughter.

Andrews, from Penge, persistently tried to delay last week's sentencing at Croydon Crown Court by staging panic attacks in the cells below a performance he had used a number of times before at previous court appearances.

But despite the distraction, Judge Stephen Waller was able to sentence Andrews to six years in his absence.

DS Quinn said he had hoped that Andrews would receive the maximum sentence of ten years and added: "He is a very dangerous man. He poses a very grave threat to society.

"I look at what she went through and when he has been banged up for only six years, what can you say?"

Similarities between the attack in Croydon and a violent robbery of a gay man in Upper Norwood led police to link Andrews to both crimes.

Three days after the attack last May forensic officers were able to match Andrews' DNA to the crime scene after looking at a similar assault in 2001.

Andrews picked up his unsuspecting victim in March 2001 at The Southern Pride in Croydon and drove him to the notorious gay cruising spot of Beulieu Heights in Upper Norwood. There, Andrews beat and robbed his victim.

Andrews was jailed for 18 months for the attack in Beulieu Heights but just three weeks after he was released last April the disturbed loner struck again in Croydon.

Andrews committed most of his crimes while living with his elderly mother in Penge.

In 1984 Andrews, who was just 19 at the time, strangled a gay man to death and immersed him in a bath of warm water to disguise his victim's time of death. He was given nine years for manslaughter.

That same year, while committing a burglary, Andrews waited outside a man's house and, when he opened the door, put a blanket over the occupant's head and stabbed him to death. He was sentenced to six years for manslaughter.

At Croydon Crown Court, Andrews' defence solicitor Mr Keogh blamed his client's crimes on a drinking problem and the impact of being sexually abused as a child.

January 10, 2003 10:00