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No parole for 'paper bag rapist'

Man guilty of multiple sex assaults, including two in Langley, will stay in jail.

The Paper Bag Rapist, John Horace Oughton, who terrorized a number of girls and women, including two 11-year-olds from Langley, during the 1980s, was denied parole again last week.

Oughton, who is now 63, committed a number of horrendous sexual assaults between 1977 and 1985. He was dubbed ‘the paper bag rapist’ for his habit of placing a bag over the heads of his victims as he assaulted them. He sometimes wore the disguise himself.

The Langley crimes occurred when he lured the two girls into tall grass near the George Preston Recreation Centre, which is located at 208 Street and 42 Avenue.

In 1987, Oughton was found guilty of 14 sex attacks, including rapes, that occurred all over the Lower Mainland. The offences for which he was convicted occurred over a period of 10 years, and while awaiting trial, he admitted to committing between 140 and 150 sexual assaults.

Declared a dangerous offender, Oughton has the right to apply for parole every two years. His last hearing was in 2011. Two years ago, he was moved from B.C. to the Bowden Institution in Alberta.

A previous parole assessment found Oughton was essentially untreatable.