A rapist jailed for 20 years for a string of terrifying attacks on women yesterday failed in an Appeal Court bid to have his conviction quashed.

Judges also dismissed an appeal by 44-year-old Timothy Din against his jail term.

Din , of Yeovil Walk, Hartlepool, was convicted of rape, three attempted rapes and burglary with intent to rape, at Teesside Crown Court in April last year.

His lawyers failed in their claim that defects in the trial judge's summing-up of the case to the jury rendered the conviction unsafe.

Lord Justice Longmore, sitting with Mr Justice Owen and Judge Andrew Patience QC at the Appeal Court, dismissed the appeal, saying the judge had posed exactly the right questions to the jury.

The judges "could see nothing wrong with the sentence of 20 years" imposed on Din.

Din, a married father-of-five, was convicted of a series of masked attacks that terrorised women in the town of Thornaby, Stockton, for more than a year in 1999 and 2000.