Serial sex attacker who tried to blackmail woman into sex on his own wedding night is jailed

A serial rapist who preyed on young women and underage girls during a nearly decade-long terror campaign was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison after a judge labeled him a danger to all women.

Oliver Wolstenholme, 38, used scheming and manipulative behavior to lure victims into sex and even tried to blackmail one into having sex with him on his own wedding night.

The aspiring police officer – who liked to dress up in uniform and kept a baton, an airsoft rifle and a samurai sword at home – targeted many of the young women online before meeting them in person.

Wolstenholme, currently held at Wakefield Maximum Security Prison in West Yorkshire, has already been rated by probation officers as one of Britain’s most dangerous offenders.

In one incident, he raped three teenage girls one by one after taking them to a park to smear them with alcohol.

Another victim overdosed in an attempt to commit suicide as she was haunted by her ordeal.

A third was strangled until she lost consciousness before letting his dog bite her stomach.

Police charged Wolstenholme after officers raided his home in Wythenshawe, Manchester, and found more than 1,500 indecent images on electronic devices showing children as young as a few weeks or months old.

In his car, officers also found a kitchen knife, gloves, duct tape, a face mask, nail guns, and a Fruit Shoot bottle containing a vodka-based drink he called a “glitterbomb.” Further searches of his property revealed a shipment of nitrous oxide and female underwear.

It emerged that a victim reported Wolstenholme to the police in 2014, but proceedings against him were dropped after she was too traumatized to testify against him.

At Bolton Crown Court, Wolstenholme – who has split with his wife – admitted to accusing three women of rape, assault and voyeurism and was sentenced to 29 years and nine months in prison.

He must serve a minimum of 20 years in prison before parole and is licensed until the year 2060.

The latest victims emerged after he was sentenced to 22 years in prison in November 2021 after being convicted of rape, sexual activity with a child, inciting a child to have sexual activity, meeting a child after grooming, possession of indecent images and two charges of possession of assault weapons related to four other victims.

All charges relate to events between 2012 and 2019. The latest sentence of 29 years and nine months will run concurrently with the 22 years he is currently serving. He was spared a life sentence.

Judge Thomas Gilbart, who sentenced Wolstenholme, told him: ‘This is a very disturbing case.

“You raped six victims and met a seventh after grooming. You used coercion and blackmail and threats with weapons. Your rapes almost became a systematic affair.

“I am convinced that you are an ongoing risk of causing serious harm to others.”

The first victim, a student, was attacked in 2012 when she was 16 after meeting Wolstenholme through a gaming app.

He raped her when she visited his then home in Partington, Greater Manchester, and later texted her, “You want to be careful on your way home from university. Hopefully you don’t get hit by a car.’

The second victim met Wolstenholme in 2014 through a dating app and they spoke online via Skype for a year before meeting in person.

She was said to have a crush on him, but in one incident he shot her in the knee with his airsoft gun and in another he strangled her until she lost consciousness before allowing his dog to bite her stomach.

He eventually raped her after booking them into a hotel before assaulting her with a sex aid. He also took a secret video of her lying naked on the bed and then threatened to send it to her boss and post it on Facebook.

The third victim was sexually assaulted after she met Wolstenholme while he was engaged to be married and she shared an illicit kiss with him at a drunken house party.

Prosecutor Ben Lawrence said, “She said she was sorry and it shouldn’t have happened, but the next day he used it against her.

“He said, ‘Ah, you want me to tell everyone what happened last night?’ and said he wanted to sleep with her.

He was aware that she was vulnerable and worried that she would lose her friends. He continued to blackmail her until she felt she had no other choice.

She thought he would stop once they did and at first he thanked her and said it wouldn’t happen again.

“But he would keep pursuing her and if she said ‘no’ he told her he would make her life ‘hell.'”

Mr Lawrence added: ‘She had bought some lingerie in the hope of using it with her own sexual partner on Valentine’s Day, but the defendant saw it and forced her to wear it for him.

She refused at first, but he crushed her and she wore the lingerie for him — but unbeknownst to her, he had a hidden camera filming her.

He then thought he had even better material to blackmail her into having more sex with him.

Whenever she said “no,” he would send her the video, threaten to post it on social media, and threaten to send it to her mother as well.

He sent it to her the day before his wedding and made a failed attempt to pressure her into having sex with him on his wedding night. He kept harassing her with requests for sex.’

Wolstenholme targeted three of his other victims aged between 14 and 15 after meeting them at Tesco in nearby Baguley.

He offered one of the girls a cigarette and told her he was a drug dealer, then lied about his age.

He drove all three girls to a quiet parking lot, where he showered them with drugs and booze before raping each of the girls one by one and threatening to leave them in the middle of nowhere if they didn’t do as he asked.

One of the victims tried to kick Wolstenholme off her, but he was too strong for her and raped her in the back seat of his car.

Another was so drunk she couldn’t speak or move, but was in tears when Wolstenholme raped her in the passenger seat.

After Wolstenholme raped the third girl over the trunk of the vehicle, he told the other girls she was a “sket.”

He was arrested in December 2019, but after being released on bail, he started grooming another 15-year-old girl on Snapchat while posing as a 17-year-old and using the name ‘T-Dog’.

In messages, he told the girl he was “her man” and repeatedly called her “baby gal,” but during a subsequent encounter in a park, she managed to escape by having a friend call her, pretending to be her mother.

In victim impact statements, one of the women said she was now struggling with relationships and men’s trust.

Another said, “I tried to commit suicide with an overdose. I suffer from PTSD and nightmares and have to take sedatives or I would wake up screaming and feel suicidal.”

A third victim resorted to alcohol abuse and suffers from ‘routine’ panic attacks.

One of the teenage girls is said to often “close off” and hesitate and fear leaving her childhood home.

Wolstenholme, who has 29 offenses to his credit, was convicted of kidnapping and possession of an assault weapon in 2003 after he grabbed a woman in the street with a knife before trying to leave her on the ground in a nearby garden.

He only ran when she struggled and screamed for help.

Defense attorney Neil Usher said: “There is very little mitigation in his case.

“Each of these cases is horrific and the impact on the victims is clear from their statements.

“There is no objection to the assessment that he poses a very serious risk of serious sexual offence. He is a dangerous offender and will no doubt remain so for many years to come.’