A sexual predator who once held a teenage girl captive in a disused mineshaft at Black Hill has been jailed for another 16 and a half years for the rapes of two other teens in the 1980s.
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Anthony James Pitt has spent the past 18 years in prison for repeatedly raping a girl in a Ballarat mineshaft over 19 hours, and must now serve at least 13 more years in custody for raping two girls almost 30 years ago.
Pitt was in August found guilty of the rapes of a 15-year-old girl in Mildura in February 1987 and a 17-year-old in Frankston in March 1988.
Both victims were snatched off busy roads, dragged into bushes, threatened, punched and raped.
Prosecutors last month called on County Court judge Mark Dean to impose a disproportionately long sentence on Pitt, given the 59-year-old remained a high risk of reoffending and the community needed to be protected from him.
Pitt has spent at least 22 of the past 27 years in custody for a series of sexual attacks on teenage girls and women, including the mineshaft offending in November 1998. He was jailed for 17 years for that offending.
Judge Dean was satisfied Pitt remained a risk of reoffending, but stopped short of imposing a disproportionately long sentence.
He said the term he imposed would still protect the community.
"The offences that you committed were of the utmost gravity... You detained young women in public places and subjected them to brutal acts of sexual violence and accompanying violence," he told Pitt.
Judge Dean found Pitt had not shown any remorse or insight while in custody, and had denied, minimised or justified his crimes to psychologists.
The judge said remarks Pitt made separately to his elderly mother and a fellow prisoner about the 1987 and 1988 rapes showed his "callous and brutal disregard" for the victims, and demonstrated a "complete failure to engage with the reality of your sexually-driven violence and who you are".
Pitt's denials and lies meant his victims had to be cross-examined at trial, which had compounded the torment they had endured since they were attacked. Judge Dean said both women were brave and had shown "great dignity and restraint" during the trial.
Pitt was jailed in 1990 for putting a girl in a car boot, and also served time for sexually penetrating a girl who was known to his family.
Those offences were committed under the name of Leslie Norman Pitt, before he changed his name around 1996.
He was about 10 weeks out of another stint in prison when he held a 16-year-old captive in the Black Hill mineshaft, having previously met her to discuss a job.
The girl was rescued when Buninyong policeman Peter Anderson crawled 70 metres underground and found her and her attacker.
Judge Dean said Pitt's prospects for rehabilitation were "negligible".Pitt, a father of four now estranged from his family, was charged with the 1987 and 1988 rapes while in jail when cold case detectives found a positive match on his DNA last year.
"After almost 30 years you were brought to justice for your crimes," Judge Dean said.
