Locations
Rocky Lane, Liverpool, L6
Description
A serial sex offender prowled Liverpool city centre in his Mercedes, targeting vulnerable teenagers on nights out before raping and assaulting three victims.
Amponsah Thompson posed as a taxi driver to lure one woman into his car and attacked her in the back seat.
The sexual predator then preyed on a second lone teenager he found slumped on the ground, drove her to his home and raped her as she drifted in and out of consciousness. He repeatedly raped a third victim and threatened her with a knife.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that the first victim, an 18-year-old woman, had been on a night out in August 2024, visiting bars including Heebie Jeebies and Lost in Seel Street. Very drunk and alone shortly after 2am, she approached Thompson’s white Mercedes near what was then Alma de Cuba and asked if he was a taxi driver.
Prosecutor David Polglase said the 29-year-old “lied and pretended that he was”. She got in expecting a lift home, but he drove her to his address on Rocky Lane in Tuebrook, joined her in the back seat and touched her between the thighs. She escaped by pretending her family were calling and had her location. She insisted on paying him; police later traced him through bank transfers.
Thompson denied pretending to be a taxi driver or entering the back seat, claiming he stopped only to collect identification and had no physical contact with her.
Released on bail, he struck again in December 2024. He targeted another “extremely drunk and vulnerable” 18-year-old who had become separated from friends after visiting pubs including a JD Wetherspoon, McCooley’s and Soho. He was seen escorting her to his car at around 3.30am after she had been slumped by a wall. She recalled “zoning in and out of sleep” as he raped her, waking at his flat before he drove her home.
Thompson, described as
“essentially prowling on both occasions”, later claimed the sex was consensual. Throughout 2025 he raped a third woman an estimated six or seven times, subjecting her to violent assaults and threatening her with a knife.
Mr Polglase told the court: “We say that this defendant is manipulative. He is a sexual predator. He has little or no regard for the boundaries of and consent for sex.”
Thompson had no previous convictions, though he had been investigated over an alleged sexual assault on a lap dancer in January 2024 that did not lead to charges.
Defence barrister Anthony O’Donohoe said:
“Prior to these matters, the defendant was a man of good character with no previous convictions. His immigration status is currently that he has leave to remain, but that is subject to review.
“I simply ask that the sentence is as short as is consistent with your honour’s public duty, leading to a sentence that is no doubt condign. It may well be, your honour, with the nature of sentences that you have under consideration, that an extended sentence would be condign and allow further supervision and licence in the community upon eventually release, by extension to what will doubtless be a significant custodial sentence.”
Thompson admitted sexual assault on the first victim and three counts of rape against the third. He was convicted by a jury of raping the second. Appearing via video link from HMP Liverpool, he was jailed for 23 years with an extended eight-year licence.
Sentencing, Judge Brian Cummings KC said:
“My own assessment, having regard to all of the circumstances of the offences, is that you are a dangerous offender, and there would remain a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm at the point that you would have otherwise served a fixed term sentence. It may be that you will be considered by the appropriate authority for deportation. I make no order in that regard. It is a matter for that appropriate authority to consider.”
Thompson must serve at least two-thirds of the 23-year term before parole eligibility and will sign the sex offenders’ register for life.