A 52-YEAR-OLD lorry driver has been charged with raping a young woman as she walked her dog in a Blackburn park 11 years ago.

Graham Darbyshire's arrest comes as part of one of Lancashire police's longest and most high profile inquiries aimed at catching the Billinge Wood rapist.

He has also been charged with a similar offence allegedly committed on a woman walking her dog in fields in Boothstown, Greater Manchester, on July 31 1993.

He was due to appear before Manchester city magistrates today charged with two rapes, sex assaults and making threats to kill.

The Billinge Wood rapist struck as his 22-year-old victim walked her dog at around 1.30pm on Sunday October 8, 1995, and subjected her to a 90-minute ordeal.

She told police she was ordered to strip and had her hands tied behind her back near a path off Killiards Lane near Billinge Nook Farm.

She said he warned her he had a knife and threatened her throughout her ordeal as well as biting her on her breast and neck.

The woman was discovered in an hysterical condition by two passers-by after she was abandoned by her attacker.

Police later received bizarre notes using letters cut out and stuck onto black bin liners, taunting them and asking for help.

The 11-year-inquiry has included a police appeal on BBC 1's Crimewatch and use of a criminal psychologist.

Six months after the attack police even took the then unprecedented step of taking DNA samples from men using the area around the attack, close to Witton Park.

Darbyshire, of Elm Grove, Cuerden, Leyland, was arrested on Monday.

The arrest came as part of an investigation by Greater Manchester Police's "cold case" unit, which revisits unsolved crimes, in conjunction with Lancashire police. Inspector Steve Baines of Lancashire Constabulary said: "A 52-year-old man has been charged with rape, sexual assault and threats to kill following an investigation into a sexual assault and rape in the 1990s."