A SERIAL robber who raped a young shop assistant on his last raid was starting the first day of a 20-year sentence today.

Peter Beckford attacked the woman inside a Worcestershire off-licence before brazenly walking out with £900 worth of cigarettes.

He left his victim locked in a wire cage and was arrested a week later after police saw him pushing a stolen car.

After a jury at Worcester Crown Court convicted the 30-year-old of rape, it was revealed he had already admitted 21 other crimes, including eight robberies of small shops.

Judge Michael Mott told Beckford, formerly of Grosvenor Road, Aston, Birmingham, he should only be released when the Home Secretary considered he was no longer a danger to the public.

"You committed a campaign of robbery, making a living from it at the time," he added. "Small shops are particularly vulnerable.

"The young woman was already terrified of you, but you locked her in a cage like a rabbit in a hutch. It was the most inhumane and barbaric way of leaving someone."

Beckford, married with a six-year-old daughter, struck on January 4, 1999, when the shop worker was alone around 7pm.

He forced her at knifepoint to lock the off-licence door and pile cigarettes into a bag, then raped her in a back room as customers queued outside.

He escaped in a stolen Rover but his fingerprints were found inside after he abandoned the vehicle.

A semen stain left on the victim's trousers matched Beckford's DNA.

A Hereford jury at a first trial in December last year was unable to reach a verdict, when scientific techniques were not advanced enough to detect the DNA.

A new method called SGM Plus led to his conviction.

Beckford, who admitted the robbery, insisted the DNA came from his saliva which had contaminated the DNA sample. He denied any sexual contact.

The jury of seven women and five men heard Beckford also admitted six counts of taking vehicles without consent, five thefts, one attempted theft, and one of assault with intent to rob. He had an 11-year criminal record including jail sentences for robbery and violence.

John Mitting QC, defending, said Beckford armed himself to intimidate victims, not to wound them.

They were unsophisticated crimes, he said, and Beckford was at best "in the second division" of robbers. He used no firearms or gags.

"I have to acknowledge that the woman was out of reach of help. It was a bad rape at the end of a frightening robbery," he added.

Beckford showed no emotion as he was sentenced. He must register as a sex offender for life.

PETER Beckford's catalogue of crime included a raid on a Bromsgrove filling station when he terrified a cashier.

Sally Price was working alone on December 13, 1998, when he asked to use the toilet at the Elf garage in Marlbrook.

She refused and he became aggressive, producing a seven-inch knife with a serrated cutting edge.

He thrust the blade towards Miss Price's stomach, said Nicolas Cartwright, the prosecution's junior counsel, which cut the web between her thumb and finger.

Beckford then grabbed her hair, demanding a till key. The terrified woman expected him to stab her.

Miss Price later told police he was out of control and manic.

She was left locked in a toilet screaming for help.

She was taken to hospital for shock and cuts to her hand and neck.

Beckford, who was captured on a security video, admitted assault with intent to rob.

Worcester Crown Court heard Beckford stole cars and used them to commit raids on small shops across the West Midlands.

From November 22, 1998, to January 11, 1999, his crime spree comprised 22 offences beginning with an off-licence raid in Selly Oak, Birmingham.

He armed himself either with a knife or brandished a bottle to intimidate shop assistants, mostly women.

Beckford was after cigarettes to sell but also stole cash from tills. Sometimes he worked with an accomplice.

One off-licence was targeted three times and, on the last occasion, Beckford announced to a shocked male shop worker: "I'm back."

His modus operandi was to ask for Thunderbird wine in order to lure shop assistants from behind their counters so that he could strike.

During a robbery on a Birmingham off-licence on December 13, 1998, he told the manageress: "If you scream I'll kill you."

But his crimewave came to an end on January 11, 1999, after he stole an MGF car from a dealer in Birmingham, driving past a security guard and underneath a barrier.

He put bogus number plates on it, stolen from Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, but was spotted pushing the car in the city's Pershore Road after it broke down.

Beckford ran off but was cornered inside Edgbaston cricket ground. He refused to answer all questions put to him by detectives but was identified by the rape victim.

He had also been filmed on a number of shop security videos.