Serial rapist who prowled Melbourne streets for victims jailed for 14 years
Melbourne rapist Wei Feng has been sentenced to 14 years for violently assaulting four women between 2013 and 2017.
Feng, 50, was jailed on Monday over attacks on three sex workers in St Kilda and another woman in Melbourne’s west.
Melbourne’s county court heard that Feng prowled the streets of St Kilda over five years to lure sex workers into his car and violently attack them.
He would promise to pay for each woman’s services and then drive them to a dark, isolated area where he would begin his attacks, the court was told.
Feng forced the women into having unprotected sex by threatening them with weapons, including a meat cleaver.
Appearing via video link from prison, Feng appeared irritated as he moved around the room and tried to interrupt judge Frank Gucciardo during sentencing.
Gucciardo said Feng had treated his victims with “utter contempt”, using them to fulfil his perverse sexual wishes.
“You treated these women with utter contempt, you violated their bodily integrity, you humiliated them and subjugated them to your vile whims,” Gucciardo said.
“The fact that three of them were sex workers makes them even more vulnerable to your aggression and violence, exemplified by your expressed desire for unprotected sex and the threats which accompanied your violence.”
Gucciardo said Feng’s worst offending was an act of “stranger rape”, where he kidnapped a woman walking down a street in Sunshine in February 2017.
Feng stopped his car in front of the woman, talking to her about cigarettes before asking if he had dropped something.
“As you stepped closer to the open door to look, you grabbed her left arm and said ‘get in the car or I’ll shoot you’,” Gucciardo said.
After kidnapping the woman, the car was pulled over by police for a random check, with Feng telling his victim he would shoot her if she opened her mouth.
He raped and assaulted the woman several times, and threatened to hurt her further.
Feng tied her hands together, but she freed herself after making noise and struggling. She refused to go to his house in Laverton and he unlocked the doors and let her out.
“This kind of ‘stranger rape’ is misconduct that leaves the community, and women in particular, in fear and consternation,” Gucciardo said.
In July 2021, a jury found Feng guilty of 10 sexual offences against four women, including rape, attempted rape and abduction.
The court on Monday heard Feng had tried to frustrate and delay the legal process by firing his legal counsel on several occasions since his arrest in 2017.
He must spend 10 years in prison before he is eligible for parole and has already served 1943 days in jail.