WITH a knife to the throat of his most recent victim, 64-year-old Colin William Babbage uttered a terrifying threat.
"You can't stir me up like that," he grunted to the 31-year-old woman, a complete stranger, in his unit in The Junction in June, 2021. "I'll cut your head off and chop your body up into little pieces."
Flashback 22 years earlier and Babbage is armed with another knife and uttering a similar threat.
"Right get into the bedroom or I'll kill you," he barks at a 19-year-old woman, another stranger who had been tricked into letting Babbage into her home. "Take your clothes off or I'll cut them off."
Two eerily similar and horrific knifepoint rapes, perpetrated by the same man more than 20 years apart.
But if only that was where it ended.
The headline on the front page of the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate on a Friday in September, 1979 was short and to the point. "Woman 'did not resist'," it read.
A young Colin William Babbage, then 21, made a statement from the Newcastle Supreme Court dock, telling the jury he believed the woman he'd had sex with on the beach in Terrigal and in a car on November 25, 1978 was consenting.
Babbage was found guilty of rape and sentenced to 10 years of "penal servitude", the first of what would become a series of attacks spread out over the next 43 years.
From the ages of 21 to now 65, Babbage has been convicted of raping three women - two while armed with a knife - and indecently assaulting a fourth.
And after he was jailed last week for a maximum of eight-and-a-half years for his latest horrific sexual assault, the Newcastle Herald can reveal the full details of a man who has been intermittently perpetrating some of the most horrendous attacks on women in the Hunter.
Trail of terror and torment
He is a man who has served more than 20 years in jail, but also spent significant law-abiding periods in the community, during which he got a trade and raised a family.
And yet, after more than 40 years, Babbage is right back where he found himself in 1979, with a trail of terror and torment in his wake.
So how is it that these horrific attacks have been allowed to happen to four different women over three generations?
Babbage is a complex character; a drug addict and alcoholic who has been shot and stabbed, suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is likely institutionalised.
A sexual deviant who, when using drugs like methamphetamine or amphetamine seems to become almost sex crazed. He had been with multiple prostitutes on the night he raped a woman in her home at Clarence Town in 1999.
Already a repeat offender, despite his age he remains a high-risk of being a repeat offender again once he is released in 2026 due, in part, to his reluctance to engage in any sort of treatment or develop skills for coping with his mental health issues.
And, overall, he remains unremorseful.
"If there is remorse maybe 5 per cent is for her and 95 per cent is for him," Judge Roy Ellis said last week, describing Babbage's feelings over the latest attack.
There is not a great deal known about Babbage's 1979 rape conviction.
But the court found the woman he'd had sex with in Terrigal was not consenting and Babbage was convicted and sentenced to 10 years "penal servitude", or imprisonment, later reduced on appeal.
Second chance
According to court documents, Babbage met his future wife in 1987 and became a "devoted husband and family man".
He studied at TAFE to be a chef and got a job the Gloucester Cafe, rising to the position of head chef.
He had, it appeared, put his terrible past and time in jail behind him.
But the job came with long hours and stress and Babbage began drinking before and after his shifts. His past bubbled to the surface on a night in October, 1999, when Babbage won $680 on the poker machines at his local club.
He convinced one of his co-workers to head into Newcastle with him and they went to a pub before Babbage went to a brothel and then later found a street-walking prostitute and sourced amphetamines.
It was about 7.30am the next morning and Babbage, still awake, had driven to Raymond Terrace where he tried to force a young woman into his car. He had tricked the woman into coming over to help him before he said "Righto, in you get" and struggled with the woman. Fortunately, she managed to break free and run away.
He then drove to Clarence Town and began knocking on doors, claiming to be looking for a couple. Really, he was attempting to find a woman who was alone and vulnerable, someone he could attack.
He tricked a 19-year-old woman into letting him into her home, pulled a knife on her and uttered those terrifying threats.
He then repeatedly raped her. At one point, the woman grabbed for the knife, triggering a life-or-death wrestle that ended when Babbage stabbed the pillow next to her head.
The late Judge Ralph Coolahan would describe the sexual assaults as "degrading in the extreme" when he jailed Babbage for a maximum of eight years in Newcastle District Court in 2000.
After being released, Babbage again spent some years out of jail, seemingly without re-offending.
'Drinks and drugs'
In September, 2018, Babbage forced himself on a 62-year-old neighbour, straddling her on a bed and ignoring her pleas to be let up. Eventually, that woman managed to fight her way out of his clutches and Babbage was convicted of indecent assault.
On that occasion, when sentencing Babbage to a maximum of 20 months in jail, Judge Ellis noted it was "difficult to reach any positive conclusion as to his prospects of rehabilitation, having regard to the fact this is the third occasion in his adult life where he has offended in a similar manner against women".
Within two years of being released, Babbage would rape another woman, again at knifepoint after inviting her back to his unit in The Junction for "drinks and drugs".
Before he attacked her, Babbage mentioned he had been in jail for armed robbery and for "sticking firearms in people's faces".
He conveniently left out the rest of his horrid criminal record.
After trying unsuccessfully to source methamphetamine, Babbage suddenly came up behind the woman, put a knife to her neck and made those chilling threats.
He raped the woman twice and later told police she had consented.
Police found the knife used in the attack in the unit next to a bottle of olive oil.
Babbage had pleaded not guilty to these most recent charges and intended to fight them.
But on what should have been the first day of his trial in November he had a change of heart and pleaded guilty.
And so last week he sat in the court dock again and listened to a judge talk about his crimes, the impact on the women, his mental health and drug use.
And again he was sent to jail, this time for a maximum of eight-and-half years, with a non-parole period of five-and-a-half years.
The sentence means he will be first eligible for parole in December, 2026.
It will be two days before his 69th birthday and unless he receives significant support and supervision he will remain a serious risk of attacking again.
Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; 1800-RESPECT 1800 737 732
