Sick 'M25 rapist' Antoni Imiela who attacked a woman in Forest Hill on Christmas Day in 1987 has been referred for parole.

Imiela, 63, was given seven life sentences in 2004 for a string of rapes against women and girls as young as 10 across the south east.

The former railway worker from Appledore, near Ashford in Kent, targeted victims he had never met, dragging them into a secluded area, threatening to kill them and hitting them.

The attacks, which began in November 2001, sparked a huge manhunt, with around 350 police officers from six forces involved in Operation Orb.

After Imiela's conviction a cold case review into a Christmas Day sex attack in 1987 found a match between his DNA and the victim, Sheila Jankowitz.

He was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 12 years in March 2013 after being found guilty of raping the mum-of-two in what had been a chilling precursor to his later crimes

A spokesman for the Parole Board said: "We can confirm that the Ministry of Justice has referred the case of Antoni Imiela for a parole review.

"The review is following the standard six-month process for all indeterminate sentence prisoners and will be reviewed on the papers in the first instance.

"The review may be concluded on the papers or alternatively it may be directed to an oral hearing."

The hearing to decide his parole will unlikely happen in the next six months.

During the trial of the 1987 rape in Forest Hill, prosecutor Richard Hearnden described the attack.

He said: "He told her that if she so much as looked at his face he would murder her.

"He punched her hard and repeatedly in the face when she resisted him."

The trial heard that Mrs Jankowitz never recovered from the effects of her ordeal, leading to her being hospitalised in a mental health unit. She died in 2006.

Imiela also had victims in Putney Heath and Epsom in 2002.