A SERIAL rapist accused of attacking a pensioner has told a jury: “I’ve done some horrible s*** but I didn’t do this.”

Anthony Murphy, 59, admitted targeting and preying on women and trying to hurt, punish and degrade them decades ago.

But he maintained he did not rape, attack or molest a 71-year-old woman last November.

“My dying breath, I didn’t do this,” he told a Teesside Crown Court jury.

“I know it sounds exactly like what I’ve done in the past,” he added.

He is accused of raping the woman in her home on November 9 last year, four months after he was released from prison.

He says he had consensual sexual activity with the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

He had served 28 years of a life sentence imposed with a 10-year minimum term in 1991 for rape and another serious sexual offence.

Jurors have heard how he had previous convictions for violent rapes of four women in France and Wales in 1980, 1982 and 1991.

The offences included him hitting, strangling and threatening to kill his victims.

Asked about his past, he said: “At the time I was committing my offences, I was really angry with the world.

“I was angry with women in particular. I knew if I drank, somebody would get hurt, and that’s what happened.

“I think it was because they rejected me... Probably because they were vulnerable women.

“I know my past. I know I’ve been a piece of s***. There’s no getting away. If I could turn the time back I would.”

He became more emotional when he was cross-examined by prosecutor Joanne Kidd.

“Please get your facts right,” he answered at one point.

“Does it make you angry if women challenge you?” asked Miss Kidd.

Mr Murphy answered: “No. What makes me angry is if people start saying things that aren’t true about me.

“Yes I’ve been guilty. I’ve done some horrible s***e, but I didn’t do this.”

He said he “pleaded guilty because I was guilty” to all the old offences except the first, which he said he could not remember because he was drunk.

Miss Kidd asked: “Do you accept on the day you received your life sentence you were properly described as a serial rapist?”

He replied: “Yes I do. Miss, I’m not denying what I’ve done. I can’t deny what I’ve done. And miss, I know everything looks bad. But I didn’t do this. You can paint me as blackly as you want, it doesn’t matter.”

He said he twice completed a sex offender treatment programme in prison, with courses in anger and alcohol control, relationship skills and attitudes to women, and four years of therapy, and claimed people fought for his release. He denied becoming “obsessed and fixated” on the latest complainant.

He said she declared love for him and wanted to live with him, having known him a matter of days, spent up to an hour alone with him, and after he told her he was a convicted rapist.

He said he rang her repeatedly between 1 and 7am because she “told me that’s what time she’d be up”.

Miss Kidd suggested: “That’s what you do, isn’t it, Mr Murphy?

“You become obsessed and fixated, and you become obsessed with being rejected.

“And when you’re rejected it makes you feel very angry and then you rape people.”

Mr Murphy answered: “No, miss. That’s how I used to be.

“The Parole Board has given me a chance. I’d be letting too many people down to do something stupid like this.”

He said he told the woman “the bare minimum” about his previous rapes.

“I didn’t tell her anything, how it happened or anything like that.”

Miss Kidd asked: “Would you accept it’s an extraordinary coincidence that the rape she described mirrors the details of all of your previous offending?”

Mr Murphy replied: “It looks exactly the same. I can’t deny that.”

He said he did not argue or fall out with the woman, and could not explain why she made the allegations.

“That’s why it makes no sense,” he added.

“She didn’t belittle me. She didn’t ridicule me. She was kind and gentle with me.

“For four or five days after I was arrested, I was expecting to wake up, thinking it was a nightmare.

“I never expected to be back in Frankland (Prison).”

Miss Kidd said: “The reality is that you violently raped her when she rejected you that morning, didn’t you?”

Murphy answered: “No miss.

“You can say whatever you like. You can throw at me whatever you like.

“I don’t care what you throw at me, miss. I didn’t do it. It’s as simple as that.”

Murphy, of Middlesbrough Road, South Bank, denies two charges of rape, one of attempted rape and two sexual assault counts.

The trial continues.