A KIDNAPPER who lured a deaf teenage boy to his Newport flat, while still on licence for attacking two women on a mountainside in Trevethin, was jailed for three years yesterday.

The detective who led the investigation today branded Richard Bool a "dangerous man" and thanked Argus readers for giving the police vital information that helped police catch the 41-year-old.

Judge John Griffith Williams told Bool, of Alexandra Road, Pill, Newport: "I consider that you are a violent man with a high risk of re-offending and the public should be protected from you."

Bool had been convicted at Cardiff crown court in June of a charge of kidnapping.

He was cleared of charges of attempted murder, false imprisonment and attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.

The judge told him: "In the early hours of New Year's Day you chanced upon a 16-year-old boy who was lost and who had a serious hearing handicap and who could only communicate by lip-reading."

He said Bool deceived the boy into thinking he was being taken to his mother's house.

Prosecutor Ian Murphy, QC, said that when the boy got to Bool's flat it was alleged the defendant tried to strangle him with a piece of fabric. It emerged after the case that Bool was jailed for eight years in 1988 for falsely imprisoning two women in the Trevethin area where he beat and sexually assaulted them after offering them a lift home.

During the attack Bool put his belt around the neck of one woman and put plastic bags over both their heads.

David Aubrey QC, defending, said the sentence must be on the basis that by deception Bool took the boy from the street to his flat. There was no assault and no violence.

DS Mark Warrender, of Gwent Police, said: "Richard Bool is a dangerous man, a fact the trial judge was emphatic about.

"I am pleased therefore the public will be protected for a number of years while he serves his terms of imprisonment.

"I would again pay tribute to the bravery of his victim who was tremendous. "I extend my thanks to the Argus readers who helped in this case."