Campaigners have written a letter to National Lottery sex offender Iorworth Hoare asking him for £1m of his winnings to fund a new rape crisis centre.

Tees Valley Sexual Violence Forum has contacted the convicted rapist to donate some of his £7m windfall so a counselling service can be offered to sex crime victims on Teesside.

Hoare, at Shepton Mallet jail in Somerset, is said to be planning to buy a £2m luxury home in Leeds, a villa in Thailand and a fleet of expensive cars.

But yesterday Forum bosses urged him to think of hundreds of victims of sexual violence who desperately need access to services after a previous centre was forced to close in April due to lack of cash.

Professor Jill Radford, forum chairman and criminology expert at Teesside University, said: "It would be a gesture of contrition on Hoare's part if he did donate some money.

"The fact is we have no service for victims of sex crimes in Middlesbrough."

Dilys Davy, manager of the Women's Support Network on Teesside, said the defunct counselling service had helped hundreds of women, but now there is nowhere for them to turn to.

Ms Davy said: "I find it ridiculous and appalling that there is no service, when you think about how many rapes and sexual assaults are committed in Middlesbrough.

"These women need support, but there is nowhere for them to turn and that is drastically wrong."

Hoare is serving life for a attempted rape on a 60-year-old woman in a Leeds city park in 1989, but could be freed on parole as early as December.

He has previous convictions for rape and indecent assault.