A BUSINESSMAN was today branded Lancashire's most dangerous sex attacker after admitting raping three women.

Among Shaun Greenwood's crimes was the rape of a Great Harwood teenager on her birthday in January 2002.

As Greenwood, 41, of Lisbon Drive, Burnley, was warned he faced life in jail, police revealed their fears he had been carrying out undetected date-rape sex attacks since 1998.

He admitted the Great Harwood offence last year but a judge at Preston Crown Court prevented details of the case being released until two further rape allegations were dealt with.

Yesterday those were finalised as Greenwood pleaded guilty to raping a woman in Every Street, Nelson, on New Year's Day 2005 and another woman on the Widow Hill Road Industrial Estate, Burnley, on February 12 the same year.

After the case, his Great Harwood victim said: "He is a dirty pervert.

"He was so calm it was chilling. He just acted as though it was normal.

"He didn't show any remorse. It was like he was going to the shops to buy some sweets."

Her mother added: "He is a very dangerous, sad man who needs help. People like him need to be stopped. If he is off the streets there will be a lot of girls safer out there."

A sample of Greenwood's DNA, taken in May 2005 during his arrest for the Nelson and Burnley attacks, revealed him to be the rapist who attacked the teenager at her home in Blackburn Road in 2002.

Speaking after the case, Det Insp Neil Hunter revealed police feared Greenwood had been date raping women as far back as 1998 in offences that had gone unreported.

He urged any victims who had not come forward to contact the police.

Greenwood ran his own business buying property abroad and appeared outwardly respectable. He was also married and has a daughter. But police said he led a double life.

Det Insp Hunter said: "I think Shaun Greenwood is probably the most dangerous person that we have had in Lancashire who has not killed.

"I definitely think he had the potential to kill but in all the offences he managed to achieve what he wanted to do. If his victims had offered resistance who knows what could have happened?

"He is a serial, predatory sex attacker who preys on vulnerable young females walking home alone.

"I think there will have been other victims, not just in Lancashire as he travelled the country for his job.

"It is worthwhile people coming forward. I think there will be further offences and the opportunity for them to perhaps bring a traumatic event in their lives to some form of closure.

"We will go and interview him after sentence to see if there is anything we can glean from him."

Judge Edward Slinger, adjourning the case until June 16 for pre-sentence reports, told Greenwood: "It is most likely that you will receive a very substantial custodial sentence and it will be a matter for the court to consider a life sentence."