A TELEVISION newsreader whose dying wife was raped in a nursing home said her attacker's three-year prison sentence is a joke.

John Archibald, of Wapseys Wood caravan site, Gerrards Cross, is now behind bars after being sentenced at Reading Crown Court on Friday.

But the newsman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the Midweek: "I think the sentence he got was pathetic. The maximum you can get for rape is life. The minimum you would normally expect to get is seven to eight years."

Judge Mary Jane Mowat, sentencing, told Archibald, a bare-knuckle boxer, that what he did was "unbelievably wicked and disgusting."

She told him an ordinary man would have been jailed for at least seven years but she took into account his IQ of 52 which she said put him "in the bottom 25 per cent of a school for the learning disabled."

She had considered placing him in the care of social services but no care homes were willing to take him.

The rapist's brother, Mark Archibald, 28, was later escorted from the court building by security staff after reportedly making threats to the victim's husband across the public gallery.

The presenter has been stepping up security at his home and Thames Valley Police has been taking measures to protect him.

John Archibald was convicted in November of raping the middle aged woman while visiting a friend in a South Buckinghamshire nursing home in February of last year. Archibald's lawyers have lodged an appeal against the conviction.

The jury at Reading Crown Court took just an hour to return their verdicts against the 29-year-old after watching harrowing video tape evidence given by the victim who suffers from a terminal wasting disease.

The courts had to wait almost five months to sentence the rapist while reports, which could have resulted in Archibald being spared a custodial sentence, were prepared for the defence.

Archibald's legal team argued that he had the mental age of a nine-year-old. Andrew Turton, defending, told the court in November that his client was easily muddled and confused.

Mark Archibald, who was visiting the home with his brother, was cleared of two charges of indecent assault at an earlier hearing when prosecution evidence against him collapsed.

The journalist believes his family will never get over the horror of the incident and says the shock caused the death of the victim's mother from a heart attack.

He said: "Having worked hard all our lives we should be at the age when we are able to relax and enjoy life. But my wife's got an illness which has destroyed the possibility of that and she's been attacked and left with the scars of that. Though desperately ill, she will be haunted by the rape for the rest of her days."

Arson at home where attack happened

THE DYING woman raped by John Archibald is facing fresh anguish after a mini bus at her nursing home was torched by arsonists.

The blaze was started on Saturday just before midnight, a day after Archibald was jailed for three years.

Detectives say they are keeping an open mind on who started the fire. Staff at the South Bucks home are frightened.

The director at the home, which cannot be named for legal reasons, told the Midweek: "I'm very frightened, we all are. You just don't expect this sort of thing to happen at a nursing home. This was just too close for comfort."

Police are now in discussion with the director to step up security at the site.

The fire, which destroyed the £25,000 vehicle, raged just yards from buildings where patients were sleeping.

Fire crews from Gerrards Cross rushed to the incident after two members of staff raised the alarm.

Police said two people were seen running away from the torched van across adjoining fields.

The director of the home said she and other staff members had spotted a suspicious white van, with no registration plates, driving through the site several times during the last few weeks.

Any witnesses should call DS John McKee at Amersham Police on (01494) 465888