A RAPIST who was jailed for 13 years yesterday for sex attacks on two North-East schoolgirls may have committed a string of other sex crimes.

Northumbria Police have circulated information about double rapist Colin Jacklin, 54, to every force in the country.

They believe that advances in DNA technology, already responsible for securing Jacklin's arrest nine years after the rapes, could link him to other sex crimes.

Detective Constable Dave Sharp, of Northumbria Police, said yesterday he believed "without a doubt" that Jacklin, formerly of Washington, Wearside, had committed more sex attacks.

Det Con Sharp, one of Jacklin's arresting officers, said: "Certainly, for the pattern of offending and level of offending, you wouldn't expect such a gap between 1974 (when he first offended) and 1989."

Yesterday, two of Jacklin's victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were at Doncaster Crown Court - 13 years after he attacked them - to see him jailed.

One victim, from Nottingham, who was 24 when he raped her, in October 1990, said after he was sentenced: "I'm just very relieved that it's over."

Jacklin was jailed for life in August 1999 after a trial at Newcastle Crown Court, but the Court of Appeal freed him on a legal technicality in November 2000 and ordered a retrial.

The father-of-17 had maintained his innocence for 13 years but changed his plea to guilty before his retrial this week, after he lost his bid to have the case thrown out of court.

Jacklin, of Clifton, Nottingham, first struck in the North-East in March 1989, when he grabbed a 15-year-old girl as she walked over a footbridge in Washington.

He threatened to stab her if she screamed, before he blindfolded and raped her.

Months later, he attacked a 13-year-old girl in Washington, and indecently assaulted her after she told him she was only 11.

Jacklin was trapped after being arrested for driving while disqualified and had a routine DNA test. The results were fed into the national DNA database and it matched with the crimes in Wearside and Nottingham.

Jacklin had also been jailed for abducting a nine-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy, in Nottingham, in 1974.

In mitigation, Peter Thorton said Jacklin felt shame, remorse and disgust with himself over the attacks.

He could no longer be described as a serious risk, he said, after a stroke in May last year left him wheelchair-bound.

Jailing him, Judge John Bullimore, said: "These were terrifying occasions for the victims. All were traumatised by what happened."

Jacklin's wife, Julie, who has stood by him throughout his court appearances, declined to comment after the hearing.