A man has been convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl while he was evading police over the brutal murder of a widow at Bury bus station.

Ian O’Callaghan was wearing his bus driver uniform when he attacked the child in 2001 and told her: ‘Let’s see if you can keep this secret.’

The terrified youngster did not report the crime for 15 years or tell her parents as she ‘genuinely believed’ O’Callaghan would kill her.

During this 15-year period she faced her attacker when catching a bus with her family and noticed his profile on the website Friends Reunited.

The victim gained the strength to come forward in 2016 when O’Callaghan was jailed for 28 years for killing 66-year-old widow Shirley Leach.

He had evaded capture for 22 years after killing the grandmother.

This week O’Callaghan was convicted of the 2001 rape following a trial at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester.

The victim told police: ‘He said if I told anyone he’d kill me and I never did.

‘He just got up after it happened and had a smirk on his face and he just walked off and just left me.

‘I never got over it and I just bottled it up.

‘Once on a website called Friends Reunited, I made a profile and his profile came up and I commented on it saying: ‘I hate you for what you’ve done to me’.

‘I remember when I was walking to school after it happened I was trying to keep up with all the other kids because I was scared of it happening again.

‘Then he got arrested for a murder, so I thought I could because he was in prison and I was having flashbacks.

‘It was affecting me being a mum and I knew that was unfair so I had to come forward for closure.’

O’Callaghan, a former Territorial Army soldier, was jailed for 16 years which will run alongside his term for murdering Ms Leach.

Judge John Potter told O’Callaghan: ‘You subjected a child to a violent rape inspired by your own appalling desires to abuse, demean and harm women to satisfy your wholly wicked and selfish desires.

‘You have shown not a shred of remorse.

‘It is conceivable that you may never be released from custody.’

Grandmother Ms Leach was ambushed by O’Callaghan on January 6 1994 when she missed a connecting bus after visiting her poorly daughter in hospital.

The killer pulled Ms Leach into a toilet cubicle ripped off her clothing and then sexually assaulted and strangled her.

Afterwards he cut off her right breast to keep as a macabre ‘trophy’ of the killing.

Police investigating the killing caught up with O’Callaghan after he was arrested for drink driving and his DNA samples matched those at the murder scene.

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