The sister of serial rapist Antoni Imiela believes her brother was the product of a brutal, autocratic father.

Jadwiga Imiela, 39, the sister of convicted "Trophy Rapist" Antoni, believes her brother was mentally scarred after being abandoned by his mother and brutalised by his father.

Last week, Antoni Imiela was jailed for a string of rapes across the south-east, including Putney and Wimbledon.

The family's fractured home life triggered something within her brother, she said after Imiela, 49, was convicted in Maidstone Crown Court of seven attacks on women, as well as kidnap, indecent assault and attempted rape.

Imiela was born in Lubeck, Germany, in 1954, the son of a Polish father and German mother.

He spent most of his early childhood in camps for displaced people in Europe, before the family moved to Worthing, in Surrey, in 1961.

The family eventually settled in Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham, but when Jadwiga was five and Imiela 15, their mother, Elfriede, a nanny and factory worker, walked out on the family. She died three years ago, aged 69.

Imiela's father left Jadwiga's elder sister, mother-of-four Yvonne, 45, to raise the family.

Jadwiga said their father withdrew to his pigeon loft, spending more time with his birds than his children.

But when his second son turned teenage delinquent, he was ashamed and subjected him to humiliating punishment rituals.

Beatings with a leather belt were routine and the angry father would also shave his son's head as a punishment for often minor indiscretions.

She said: "Despite everything, Antoni and dad were very close. But dad had a violent temper, and a cold, cruel streak in him. You knew there was a line you could not cross with him. Perhaps it runs in the family."

Their father, a welder and factory worker, who died at 77, once punished Imiela by shaving off all his hair.

Jadwiga said: "One time, this bald kid came up to mam in Woolworths and called out to her, but she said I'm not your mam'. She did not recognise it was Toni, but Dad had shaved off all his hair as a punishment."

A former neighbour of the family remembered frequent arguments between Antoni and his father.

He said: "Antoni had an unstable family relationship because there was no mother there. He was a handful for his father and there were times when his father attacked him in the garden. He was the type who wouldn't care who saw him do that."

He described Imiela's father as devious, adding : "He was the type who would knock somebody's block off if they approached him."

Imiela was a pupil at St John's Comprehensive, a Roman Catholic school in Bishop Auckland. He was bullied at school in his early years there, partly because of the severe haircuts his father gave him. He was also teased for being German and was called a Nazi.

But Imiela, known as Toni to his friends, soon developed a reputation as being something of a Jack-the-lad.

One former St John's pupil, three years below him at school, remembered him as someone you avoided.

He said: "He was the sort of lad that you feared you steered clear of him."

Although he had some friends, Imiela was something of a loner. He turned to a life of crime early on and began burgling houses in Newton Aycliffe as a teenager. He was part of a small criminal gang and soon found himself in trouble with the law.

In and out of detention centres throughout his early years, he served sentences in borstal at Wetherby, North Yorkshire, as a 15-year-old.

One former acquaintance said: "He used to get up to all sorts when he was a kid. He used to rob a lot of houses in Aycliffe.

"He did have friends but also a lot of enemies. Mostly, he was a loner and we didn't know what was going on in his mind."

Another former neighbour said Imiela had regular girlfriends as a teenager, which was another source of tension between him and his father.

He said: "He did have girlfriends and there was many a time he brought them home to the house and his dad wasn't happy about that."

Imiela had few interests other than stealing and taking cars, but used to drink on the town.

Although his criminal reputation grew, there was little hint that he would be capable of crimes as serious as those he went on to commit during the 1980s, including armed robberies and those he was convicted of last week.

A friend, who knew Imiela 30 years ago, said: "We got a shock when we heard about the rapes, we didn't expect him to do anything like that."

Imiela developed a relationship with Allyson Pletts, whom he met in a coffee shop in Newton Aycliffe.

She had first been going out with Imiela's elder brother, Andy, but when they split up she got together with Imiela.

Brute She remembered Toni Imiela as a violent brute who occasionally beat her unconscious while in a jealous rage.

But Ms Pletts, now 43, said their "boring" sex life gave her no indication she was living with a vicious rapist.

Ms Pletts and Imiela had a son, Aidan, 20, who considered changing his name to avoid the stigma of being connected with his father.

Her relationship with Imiela came to an abrupt end when their home was raided by the police after Imiela carried out a string of violent armed raids.

She said: "Our sex life was actually boring. There was certainly nothing strange or unusual about it. It is because it was so completely run-of-the-mill that I found it hard to accept he had done these terrible things. He just didn't fit the image of a rapist one iota.

"The person who raped and terrified these poor women is nothing like the man I knew."

This article first appeared in the Northern Echo.