A £7 MILLION lottery-winning rapist was taken to a new bolthole last night after his publicly-funded hiding place was identified by a newspaper.

Iorworth Hoare was moved to a new home yesterday when The Sun newspaper discovered that he was living in a £150,000 rented home in Sunderland.

Mr Hoare, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989, was released on licence in March and was given Home Office protection. The operation to house him and provide a team of police, probation officers and psychiatrists to protect him and to keep him from reoffending, costs up to £10,000 a month.

The cost provoked anger among MPs and the public who were mystified that Mr Hoare had not had to pay a penny towards his care despite earning several thousand pounds of interest each week despite winning £7 million in the National Lottery in August last year. Neighbours of the £100-a-week property in Sunderland where he was living until yesterday were astonished to discover that he was a convicted rapist.

He had been living there under the assumed name Edward Thomas, according to The Sun, and had recently spent more than £9,000 on an artwork featuring a human figure with a bloody crotch.

Mr Hoare was sentenced to life for the attempted rape of a 59-year-old former teacher. He had previously been convicted of one rape, a second attempted rape and two indecent assaults. The judge who jailed him for life told him: “For every second you are at liberty a woman is at risk.”

He won the lottery jackpot last year while being held in Shepton Mallet open prison, having bought a ticket during weekend leave at a hostel in Middlesbrough.

The win by a convicted rapist serving a life sentence caused a national outcry which was compounded when the Government revealed that he would not have to pay any of his new-found wealth to his victims.

Since his release the cost to the public purse of protecting Mr Hoare is about £10,000 a month. In an editorial in today’s newspaper The Sun justified its publication of Mr Hoare’s new identity and a picture of his home, and called upon Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, to force Mr Hoare to pay for his own protection.

The editorial said: “Hoare is an evil and disgusting serial predator who has destroyed the lives of many women. Why should we all pay for him to live in cosy anonymity?”

The Home Office refused to answer questions last night about the public money that is spent in caring for Mr Hoare since his release. Instead, it issued a statement in which a spokeswoman said: “We don’t comment on individual cases or discuss the whereabouts of those being managed in the community. Offenders who are life licensed in the community are managed robustly by the multi-agency protection arrangements.”

Mr Hoare, 52, married Irene Harrison in prison. He has since begun divorce proceedings and is said to have offered his wife £250,000 as a settlement. Mr Hoare, who has spent 33 years in prison with sex offence convictions dating back to 1973, was said to have carried out “ferocious and terrifying” attacks on women.

He was sentenced to life at Leeds Crown Court. His victims are unable to sue him because a six-year deadline for beginning legal action has passed. One victim who was attacked in 1982 was left disabled. Another victim, who was attacked in 1982 and is now in her sixties, received £3,000 for her trauma and injuries, which left her disabled.

The Government had promised to put a clause into the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill that would enable victims to get compensation, should their attackers receive a windfall, at a later date. When the Bill went through Parliament the clause was omitted.

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