A RAPIST who had already been jailed for five years was found guilty of another attack after targeting a 17-year-old girl from Bucks.

Arshad Arif, 28, randomly selected a teenager the same age as his previous victim, before taking her to a park in Slough where he raped her twice.

She had been out for the night in Watford and was trying to make her way back to her parents’ £2.5m home when Arif, previously jailed for an attack he carried out in 2004, spotted her.

Arif, who had been out of prison for about two years when he decided to carry out the attack, was remanded in custody on Friday to await sentencing. A jury heard that predatory Arif lured the 17-year-old into a taxi in the early hours of the morning and took her to a park miles from her home, raping her twice.

Meanwhile family, friends and police in Buckinghamshire were desperately calling her last known contact point - which turned out to be the rapist's phone - and her frantic mother was even looking for her body.

Jury members heard that in 2004 Arif had also approached another drunken 17-year-old in the early morning, under the pretence of taking her home and raped her in a flat. He admitted this earlier crime and in 2006 was sentenced to five years in jail.

Jurors only learned of his previous conviction after a courtroom blunder by the defendant, as a judge had earlier ruled that the information should not be given to the jury.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Abigail Husbands, Arif said: "I would not think about raping anybody."

That enabled the prosecution to re-apply to Judge Zoe Smith to tell jurors he was a convicted rapist, which the judge permitted.

In a recorded police interview played to the court, his distraught latest victim said: "I just felt like I'm going to die.

"It's just hard to believe it actually happened, that I would get away."

The girl said Arif had pushed her down and made her perform a sex act on him, constantly threatening her.

"If I didn't do it, I was going to be raped," she said. "In the end it was both."

She said that he told her "it will be a whole lot worse” if she tried to escape.

The jurors heard how his victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been celebrating a friend's birthday when she became separated from the female party early on November 25 last year.

She was stranded in the cold and wet outside Oceana nightclub in Watford for about an hour, drunk, with no phone or money - and so could not pay for a taxi home.

Arif joined her and several others who had sought shelter from the cold in a doorway.

Footage from CCTV cameras then showed them walking off.

At 3.15am the girl's parents were woken by a call from Arif's mobile phone to the landline at their south Bucks home.

"Mum, it's me. I don't feel well and I've lost the others. Can you come and get me," the girl said.

Within five minutes the concerned parent was on the road, yet when she got to Oceana her daughter was not there and she raised the alarm with police outside the club.

The tearful parent told the court: "I went looking for her in bins, in alleyways. There's a large pond behind Oceana and I was looking to see if she had drowned in there."

Meanwhile Arif and the girl were in a taxi, which he first asked to go to Hayes, where his mobile phone and watch business was, but then asked to go to Slough instead.

As they arrived at Salt Hill Park, the driver noted the girl did not want to leave.

She was then pushed and carried through the park to the far side and attacked.

As Arif led her out afterwards, still gripping her, he was distracted by a man in the street who the girl asked for help. She seized the chance and rushed to the front door of pensioners Michael and Barbara Georgiu, who let her in. Meanwhile Arif fled to his home in nearby Belfast Avenue.

Jurors only learned after delivering their verdicts that in the previous rape also involved a 17-year-old stranger, who was drunk, who was approached in the early hours of the morning and offered a lift home but did not get one.

After the guilty verdicts were returned, Detective Sergeant Lucy Deane said: "On behalf of the victim and her family, we are delighted the jury has reached this verdict.

"This man is a dangerous predatory offender who needs to be locked up to ensure the safety of young women who find themselves, through no fault of their own, in vulnerable situations.

"He literally hunted this victim down - identifying her vulnerability and taking the worst kind of advantage imaginable.

"He denied the allegations forcing the victim to relive the appallingly frightening experience all over again. I must praise the bravery that has been shown by the victim allowing justice to be done and this dangerous offender to be removed from our streets."

Arif will be sentenced on July 12.