A FIRE chief turned serial rapist was today starting a life sentence after he was caught by DNA taken after he exposed himself to a woman at an East Lancashire beauty spot.

George Heyes, 44, raped and sexually assaulted a string of victims aged between 14 and 26 in late-night ambushes for which he often wore a disguise and hooded top to cover his red hair.

Heyes, the father of a teenage son, stood impassively in the dock at Preston Crown Court as Mr Justice Penry-Davey sentenced him.

He was eventually caught after exposing himself to 30-year-old Joanne Nelson as she walked her dog at Entwistle Reservoir, near Darwen, in December, 1999.

Ms Nelson, of Bolton and a director of Channel 4's Brookside, chased and caught him.

He was convicted of indecent exposure and sacked from his job - and it was then that routine DNA linked him to the rapes and other sex attacks.

The judge told him: "Over a period of 18 months from 1996 onwards you planned and carried out an appalling series of callous, violent and terrifying sexual attacks on lone women at night. In two incidents you subjected them to rape, in one case repeatedly.

"In those and other incidents you subjected them to other sexual indignities including forced oral sex."

The judge said he believed Heyes, of Bamburgh Close, Radcliffe, near Bury, would be a serious danger to women for an "indeterminate time".

Heyes admitted one rape and an indecent assault earlier this year.

He was convicted of a further rape and two sexual assaults after a four-day trial at Manchester Crown Court in May.

The judge gave him two life sentences for the rapes, to run concurrently with sentences of eight years, seven years and eight years, also to run concurrently, for the indecent assaults.

At the time, he was earning £30,000 a year as an acting divisional fire officer with Greater Manchester Fire Brigade.