A BRUTAL man who raped a woman and then drove her to Yate Trading Estate to kill her has been jailed for life.

David Simmons, 32, offered his 25-year-old victim a lift home as she walked through Portland Square in Bristol after a night out.

But instead of driving her to Bedminster he drove her to Fishponds Trading Estate.

He then tied her to the passenger seat using a rope before taking off her clothes and raping her at knife-point.

After the attack, which happened in August last year, he poured a bottle of wine over her, claiming it would prevent the police obtaining his DNA.

Simmons then drove her to a deserted area near Yate Trading Estate, where he tried to "psyche" himself up to kill her.

Simon Morgan, prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court, said he pulled the terrified woman from the car and stood before her, laughing, with a knife in his hand.

"The woman said he was psyching himself up, saying 'just do it, just do it'," he told the court.

"She was sobbing, but it appeared he felt he couldn't kill her. She could hear him mumbling and he said it would be one clean sweep and she would be dead." Simmons eventually got back into his car and drove off.

The victim - who Simmons wrongly believed was a prostitute - stumbled half-naked to a nearby car park, where a security guard paid for her taxi home.

Police traced Simmons to his Bristol bedsit through the car he had dumped, which he had borrowed from a friend.

Mr Morgan told the court that Simmons was a loner who had previous convictions including burglary, dishonesty and theft.

Simmons was also jailed for four-and-a-half years in 1990 for a knife-point robbery and a separate indecent assault.

Despite pleading guilty to rape and false imprisonment, Judge John Foley showed no leniency at Bristol Crown Court last Thursday.

He said: "You pose a serious threat to women and your offences justify a sentence of life imprisonment.

"You are a person of unstable character who is likely to commit further injurious crime to women."

Det Insp Geoff Spicer, who headed the investigation for Avon and Somerset police, said: "I believe it was his intention to kill her all along but he could not go through with it.

"It is only through the bravery and tenacity of this victim that other women's lives have been saved.

"My hunch is that he was looking for a working girl to kill."