TO MANY Antoni Imiela was the usual, everyday working husband - but underneath this facade were some very dark secrets.

hs now been revealed We now know him to be the evil M25 rapist who wreaked unrelenting terror on women and children - a campaign of rape which started in Ashford on the Stanhope Estate.

Neighbours in Heathside, Appledore, saw him come and go, early in the mornings and late in the evenings but never batted an eyelid because they knew the rigours of his job.

Edwin Boorman, Imiela’s next door neighbour, said at the time of his arrest: “He keeps to himself. He has never done me any harm.

Imiela would often spend weekends with his wife Christine in their beloved VW camper van.

Immaculately restored, the couple took pride in showing the vehicle, named Chrissy’s van, at Volkswagen meetings around the country.

Christine is well known in Appledore, a regular at the village church and a much-liked member of the community.

Her husband on the other hand, lived a much more sheltered village life. His long working hours meant he was rarely seen.

Imiela was a quiet man, described as polite, but someone who said very little - he was an outsider in Appledore.

The Rev Lindsay Hammond, former Vicar of Appledore, told the Kentish Express: “He has only been in Appledore for a few years and during that time he always worked fairly long hours and he and Christine were often away at weekends.

“He was new to the village and nobody really got to know him. It’s amazing how many people on Heathside didn’t really know him at all.

“Had it been a villager who had lived here for donkeys years it would have been harder to move on.

“He was new, relatively unknown and I think people weren’t so badly affected as they could have been.

“Many of them said they didn’t know him to relate to him as a person. They didn’t see him enough to form an opinion.”

Mr Hammond said of Mrs Imiela: “Christine is a lovely person. A huge amount of community support helped her to get out and about.

“She didn’t shut herself away and we can only guess what she can be going through.

“Christine was and is greatly respected. People think an enormous amount of her and that’s not wavered.”

At home Imiela could have almost been seen as the perfect husband. Working tirelessly to fit a new kitchen, building a wall in the back garden and laying a shingle path, were a few of the details his wife described in court.

He enjoyed seeing his family, was affectionate with Mrs Imiela and like any other happily married man he devoted time to his hobbies.

When not at work, he would often spend time working on cars, buying them cheap, doing them up and selling them on.

He would search the local area and beyond for bargain cars or parts that he could use.

Mrs Imiela said of her husband: “If he wasn’t at work he would be looking for cars.”

He enjoyed going to boot fairs, an interest shared by his wife - just as they both loved the camper van.

Imiela was also a surfer. He took his board across the country in the camper and the couple regularly visited Devon and Cornwall for short breaks and holidays.

While at work he seemed like one of the lads - always ready to share a joke and get involved in banter with his close-knit team.

But behind all this and away from his family, Imiela was leading a double life. Working both in Woking, Surrey, and then Reading, Berkshire, he claimed he would leave work and head in to London looking for prostitutes or cruising gay bars.

The time of day appeared not to stop him. He would go searching for sex in the early hours of the morning following a night shift, just as readily as he would at the end of a day shift.

He had regular haunts such as Hampstead Heath, Earls Court, the West End, Kingston and Richmond and would pay for sex of all varieties.

Officers working on the case had never heard the claims about his gay life until he stepped in to the witness box at Maidstone Crown Court.

Imiela was not only leaving work and heading in to the city looking for sex, he was prowling for his next target - the next lone jogger or young schoolgirl walking home he could pounce upon.

He stalked old work haunts waiting for an unsuspecting woman or child to come past.

And following the mistake he made in Ashford, when he did not use a condom, he always made sure he carried protection in an attempt to minimise leaving any DNA evidence.

Month after month he would hunt out helpless victims, before calmly returning home as if everything was normal.

The only suspicions Mrs Imiela had were her husband’s erratic work hours and increasingly late journeys home from work. She thought he may have been having an affair, but it was to prove far worse than that.

Mr Hammond said: “He needs our prayers because he has made such a gigantic mess of his life and affected so many good people.”