Victim launches bid to stop rapist being moved to open jail

A woman raped by a former Downing Street aide has launched a petition in a bid to prevent her attacker from being moved to an open prison.

Mark Adams was jailed for seven years for raping the 17-year-old, attacking her as she walked home after a night out at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2017.

That sentence, handed down in March 2019, came after Adams – who worked in Downing Street under John Major and Tony Blair – had a seven-year sentence imposed at Woolwich Crown Court in January the same year for raping another woman in 2015.

But in an online petition, his most recent victim said she had been informed that Adams had been approved for a transfer from a high-security prison in England to an open jail there.

Such a move, she said “would allow him escorted visits outside the prison, leading on to unescorted visits” before eventually being allowed “overnight home stays”.

The woman said: “Mark Adams has not yet served a single day in prison towards ‘my’ sentence.”

She added: “This man is a serial rapist who should not be allowed to move back into the community in any way, shape or form.

“I was a teenager when I was attacked. Mark Adams was 56. He is a danger to young women wherever he goes and should remain in a Category A prison.”

When he was sentenced for raping the teenager in Edinburgh, judge Lord Armstrong said Adams had taken advantage of a “vulnerable” young woman in a “calculating and manipulative manner” as she made her way home alone.