I was beaten up and raped by brutal gardener who tried to strangle

HE was tall, handsome, polite, well-spoken and seemed every inch the successful businessman when he introduced himself to a lonely woman in a nightclub.

It didn't take long for Margaret Duncan-Dove to fall for witty and charming Dean Morland.

He drove an E-type Jaguar, wore designer clothes and jewellery, and it wasn't long before he moved in with Margaret and her four children as they started a seven-month long affair.

But 37-year-old Dean Morland was not the successful businessman he pretended to be. He was an unemployed gardener living on benefits...and now he is beginning a 21-month jail term for attacking another gullible lover - a wealthy married solicitor who accused him of rape in last week's sensational "Lady Chatterley" trial.

A jury cleared Morland of raping his unnamed mistress, but found him guilty of assault after she revealed how he tried to strangle her during a kinky sex session which turned to violence.

Margaret is now speaking out because she has been horrified by the sordid details of the court case, - and the fact that the jury were not told of his past convictions. And she wants other women to know what a monster Morland is after being beaten and raped by him herself.

Morland smirked as he was led from the dock at Nottingham Crown Court, knowing that he will be free in four months because of time he's already spent on remand. Margaret fears he will resume his "career" of preying on women.

"He is an evil man who takes advantage of vulnerable women," she says. "He always wants his own way and when he doesn't get it he becomes violent."

Margaret first met Morland in a nightclub near her home in Driffield, East Yorkshire, after splitting from her husband of 14 years just six months earlier.

"I went to the club with some girlfriends and suddenly he seemed to appear from nowhere," she recalls. "He told me he was a businessman who was staying at a local hotel and regularly travelled to London.

"He was super-smooth and very plausible. We had a good laugh at his accent and one friend said: 'My God, he's a bit posh, isn't he?'"

Margaret and her children, aged 13 to 17, had moved from a pounds 450,000 six-bedroom family home into a smaller rented property when her marriage broke up.

But she still wore designer clothes and jewellery - and she believes Morland targeted her because he thought she was well-off. A week after they met, he arrived at her home at the wheel of his metallic gold E-Type Jaguar - and Margaret was happy to invite him in to share a bottle of wine. "Looking back, I don't know how I let him into my life, never mind my home," she says. "At first, he just started to stop over, but in a short time he said he had to give up his flat in a village near Barnsley - and moved in.

"He brought all his clothes with him. They were all the best designer labels, but I remember thinking at the time there wasn't such a lot of them. He got on well with the children and we became lovers - but he was very manipulative. It was as though he was building himself a nest, establishing a base for himself.

"He told me each week he went to London, but all the time he was going back to his grotty flat in Barnsley. When I eventually saw it, it was a disgusting hovel.

"At the beginning, he seemed to have plenty of money, but it dried up. Then one day a Giro cheque arrived and I realised he was unemployed and on Income Support."

Margaret confronted Morland and, when pressed about his past, he told her he had been in trouble since he was young and that he had been to jail.

He didn't reveal he was a deserter from the Foreign Legion who had been jailed for 12 years for kidnap and armed robbery after extorting pounds 200,000 from a security guard.

He also didn't tell her about how he used eight different names to escape his past.

As the relationship continued, Morland's behaviour changed. "He could be all smiles one minute and angry the next," says Margaret.

"Anything could cause him to lose his temper - just small things, like changing arrangements without asking him. I think I knew then that I had made a mistake, but it was very difficult to get rid of him and I felt very much on my own." The violence began after a trip to a pub when Morland accused another man of looking at Margaret and caused a scene by threatening to "sort him out".

"By the time we left the pub, he was quite drunk," she says. "As we drove home in the Jag, he accused me of not going fast enough and tried to force my foot down on the accelerator.

"He was shouting and screaming and completely lost it. A couple of miles from home, he told me to stop the car and I jumped out and ran up the road, but he caught me and dragged me back by my hair.

"He started to slap me about and forced me to drive up a country lane. He made me stop the car and I really thought he was going to kill me.

"He told me, 'I can do whatever I like with you because no one will find you for months'. He started to punch and slap me around. My mouth was bleeding and I was very dizzy. Eventually he stopped, and told me that if I 'behaved' we could go home. Once there, he fell asleep in a drunken stupor.

"The following morning he told me how sorry he was, how much he loved me, and didn't want to leave me and I forgave him," she says. "It was a big mistake, but I somehow managed to convince myself that the violence did not happen. I suppose I was looking for a new relationship. I felt very vulnerable, the kids were all over him and liked him, and I didn't want to spoil things for them. He was also extremely good at making you feel sorry for him. He made it sound as if the whole world was against him and that nobody understood him.

"Even when he confessed to having been in prison he insisted it was not his fault - it was a mistake and he had just become involved with the wrong people."

For a few weeks, everything seemed fine. Then one afternoon, Margaret took a phone call from someone enquiring about buying her car. Morland had advertised it for sale without telling her.

WHEN I confronted him, he just told me, 'Do as you are told and everything will be all right'. When I argued with him, he knocked me about and bashed my head against a bookcase.

"He dragged me upstairs by the hair and said, 'I'll do what I want with you'." When Margaret threatened to call the police he laughed in her face.

"Fortunately," she says, "the children started coming home from school and he calmed down and told them we just had a bit of a tiff."

But she says it wasn't long before Morland raped her. They had gone to bed as normal but when she refused to make love, he became "like an animal".

"He pinned me down, and said, 'If I want it, I will have it'. There was nothing I could do, he was far too big and far too powerful. It was not what I wanted to do, but I knew what would happen if I tried to resist. He certainly knew what he was doing. I think he got pleasure from it - in fact, I'm sure he did.

"When he was in a rage it was if his mind had gone and you couldn't get through to him. He is ill and needs help - but until he admits that he won't get any."

After another night out in a pub Margaret suffered her third - and last - beating. "As we were walking home, he became quite agitated andI knew something was going to happen," she says. "He called me a bitch and a flirt and pushed me over a hedge. I was pleading with him, but he knocked me down and started to kick me. He ripped off my top and made me walk down the street like that and with my arms pinned to my side. Just before we got home, he told me, 'Don't you dare tell anybody', but my son had heard the commotion and was standing in the doorway. He took one look at me and could see what had happened - and I begged him to call the police."

Margaret was now terrified of her powerful, shaven-headed lover, but by the time the police arrived, he was calm and told them it was his home and he wasn't moving.

She went to a neighbour's housewiththe children, found the courage to press charges, and the police put Morland in a cell for the night. In the morning she packed his belongings into bin liners and was relieved to be free of him at last. The ordeal of facing Morland in the dock of a small local court, was almost too much for her, but she stuck to her guns and he was found guilty of assaulting her.

However, to her amazement, magistrates freed him with just a fine. "I was disgusted," she said. "I could not believe he was allowed to walk free from court."

Margaret has not seen Morland since - and until a few days ago had no idea her former tormentor had attacked another gullible woman. She says: "When I found out he was charged with rape I had this awful sinking feeling. It disturbed and frightened me because I knew only too well what violence he was capable of."

She adds: "I am angry that the jury in this last case was not told of his violent past.

"Women need protecting from men like him, but the law is not doing that. Until it is changed, violent men like him will continue to prey on women."

Margaret, who is training to become a social worker, feels the law favours violent men.

"When it is known that a man has a past record of violence towards women, surely the jury should be told.

"The protection of women in these cases, should be paramount.

"There has to be a better way of presenting evidence in court so that the jury gets a full picture without prejudicing justice. Something must be done.

"Only then can women feel safe from men like Dean Morland, knowing that they will be in prison where they belong for a long time."

Copyright 2002 MGN LTD
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