STEPHEN CRAWFORD was once described as a smooth-talking romantic who liked to give flowers to impress women.

But once his victims were in his grasp, he would turn in an instant, carrying out horrifying sex attacks.

One woman, Joanne, not her real name, was 18 when she was trapped inside Crawford's car and said she had been raped in a dark country lane.

The incident, in March 1991, happened a week after she had met and befriended Crawford, when he stopped to offer her and a friend a lift home after a night out in Sunderland.

The way Crawford would coax his victims into his car and then drive them to isolated areas became his trademark.

Joanne said that after another night out, this time in Newcastle, he turned on her after he dropped her friend off at her home.

She said she was driven in his gold metallic Ford Sierra to a secluded spot, which was where the alleged attack took place after Crawford had locked the doors of the vehicle.

Although she said she tried to escape, she could not because Crawford, who is 6ft and weighs 17 stones, had locked the doors and held her down with his arm over her neck.

Speaking in 1994, she said of the former pub DJ: "The change in him was incredible. He went from being friendly and a bit of a flash talker to someone who was completely evil. He was like Jekyll and Hyde. He told me to stop crying and got angry. I thought I was going to die."

Crawford later denied the attack and was cleared by a jury after he said the sex had been consensual and that Joanne could not wait to get his clothes off.

Joanne said: "He seems so normal at first, but then he turns into an evil monster.

"And believe me, when he is like that, there is no stopping him."

Crawford was labelled in the media as the "laughing sex fiend" after he grinned at Newcastle Crown Court in March 1994 when a fifth rape charge against him in nine years was dropped because the female complainant declined to give evidence.

A 27-year-old police special constable said Crawford raped her after a wedding party.

But the woman later declined to give evidence, because she was pregnant and had moved from the North-East to another part of the country to begin a new life.

She told police that after the alleged attack, Crawford drove her to a remote spot and subjected her to a vicious indecent assault, in which he bit her breast and forced his hand between her legs.

Crawford was said to have befriended the woman after he asked her for directions in the street. He also later offered to pay £200 she owed in rent arrears.

He rubbished the allegations.

Although he was cleared of rape, he was found guilty of indecent assault.

A month after he was arrested for the alleged attack on the 27-year-old, he drove a 13-year-old girl 30 miles from her home and had sex with her in his car.

For that, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail after he admitted a charge of unlawful sex.

Added to the three months he received for indecently assaulting the special constable, it made a total of 21 months.

But Crawford again came out smiling after instantly being released on parole, because he had already been in custody for more than a year.

Yesterday, one of his latest victims said she still had nightmares about her ordeal and felt sick thinking about it.

She was attacked after she was picked up by Crawford in what he said was his "taxi", with the 44-year-old saying he took pity on her after he saw her walking home late at night on her own.

She said of her ordeal: "It was like he had a split personality or something. He was trying to be calm and he would then start shouting and telling me to shut my mouth. He is filthy, he is twisted in the head; a pervert."