Praying rapist who made sign of the cross after every attack will die in prison Judge Stephen Robbins told him: "Your depravity knows no bounds. These are very grave offences. The victims of your offences were all elderly. You broke into their houses in the middle of the night. You then proceeded to submit them to humiliating and degrading sexual attacks and, unlike Delroy Grant, your offences are aggravated and marked by terrible violence. I'm quite satisfied that you are a danger to society therefore I do sentence you to imprisonment for the rest of your natural life. Roberts raped three women, aged 57, 77 and 66, in 1988 and 1989. In 1990 he assaulted an 83-year-old woman. In each attack he fled with relatively small amounts of money after brutally assaulting the women. Two of the women lived just yards from Roberts's home in Southwark, south London and all are now dead. One of his victims said that Roberts made the Sign of the Cross and muttered a Roman Catholic prayer for the dead after he attacked her. Others said that Roberts told the women not to look at his face. He hid a distinctive scar on his forehead by wearing his hair in a floppy fringe. But other features gave him away, including his back, which one of the women accurately said was covered in brown marks and moles, and his clothing, including a dirty green tracksuit. Some victims also said he smelled of alcohol. The court heard from Leanne Ward, a woman Roberts used to live with, who told the court that he used to scan newspapers for coverage of his attacks and that after hearing about one attack on the radio he told her: "I did that, but I didn't rape her." Police took samples from the scenes of each crime, but Roberts was not identified until a cold case review team was able to have the samples tested for DNA in 2005. Roberts's DNA was already on the database as he was convicted of a violent attack on a pensioner in 1995 and sentenced to six years. He was later convicted again in 2005 for a similar attack on a pensioner and given a life sentence. In a victim impact statement, the son of one of Roberts's victims said: "My mother was once a cheerful and kindly person who never used to worry about anything - that was until the night when she was brutally assaulted. She said later that she thought that night was going to be her last. How anyone can attack a defenceless female in her own home, who is disabled, words fail me. Detective Inspector Nathan Eason, from the Metropolitan Police, said: "Michael Roberts is a sexual predator who preyed on vulnerable women in the late 80s and early 90s. Unfortunately none of his victims lived to see him being brought to justice today but the family members of the victims have expressed deep satisfaction with handed down today. They take huge satisfaction from the fact that he will never devastate other lives. Police also believe Roberts is linked to the murder of 68-year-old Irene Grainey. Who was sexually attacked and stabbed to death with a kitchen knife on May 31, 1990. Her body lay undiscovered for six weeks at her council maisonette in Eugenia Road, in Rotherhithe, May 31, 1990. The murder remains unsolved.