A sex attacker who violently raped a woman in her own home before cheating justice for nearly two decades faces a life sentence after being convicted under ‘double’ jeopardy laws.

Wendell Baker, now 56, of Upper Walthamstow Road, Walthamstow, was originally put on trial in 1999 but walked free after a judge ruled out crucial DNA evidence against him.

Thinking he had got away with his crime he laughed in the face of police when they came to arrest him and even threatened to rape a female officer.

But the jobbing builder was put on trial under the so-called ‘double jeopardy’ law introduced in 2005 and finally convicted of the 1997 sex attack 16 years on.

Baker, who claimed police had framed him by tampering with DNA evidence, showed no reaction as the jury of six men and six women announced their guilty verdict after only an hour’s deliberation on Tuesday.

Baker subjected 66-year-old Hazel Backwell to a ‘prolonged and horrific' ordeal after breaking into her home in Stratford.

He beat her, trussed her up with electrical tape and smothered her in her own duvet as he told her she would be killed.

After demanding her cash and bank cards, he punched her to the floor and bestially raped her before locking her in a cupboard and fleeing the scene with her handbag.

Ms Backwell, a mother-of-one who moved to London from Exeter in 1955 and died in 2002, was only discovered 15 hours after the attack at her home in Litchfield Avenue in the early hours of January 23, 1997.

Baker was linked to the attack when his DNA was taken following his arrest for an unrelated burglary the following year.

But at a 1999 Old Bailey trial Judge Alan Hitching ruled the sample should have been destroyed after he was acquitted of the break-in.

With little other forensic evidence, prosecutors were forced to drop the rape case and Baker was found not guilty. 

The House of Lords eventually overturned the ruling but it was not until the introduction of the ‘double jeopardy’ law – allowing those cleared of serious offences to be put on trial again – that the case could be re-opened.

Baker, who denied a single count of rape, was a heavy crack cocaine user and has previous convictions for a string of burglaries and a 1993 assault on an ex-girlfriend.
He will be sentenced on Friday.