CAMPAIGNERS are calling for a reform of the law after rapist John Archibald was sentenced to three years behind bars.

Archibald, 29, of Wapseys Wood caravan site, in Gerrards Cross, was convicted in November last year of raping a dying woman while visiting a friend in a South Buckinghamshire nursing home.

Judge Mary Jane Mowat, sentencing at Reading Crown Court last Friday, told Archibald that an ordinary man would have been jailed for at least seven years but she took into account his IQ of 52, which she said put him "in the bottom 25 per cent of a school for the learning disabled."

Bexley Penhaligon, of Wycombe Rape Crisis, who watched the trial, said that "such an inadequate sentence serves to deter women from reporting rape."

She added: "He [Archibald] has committed a serious sexual offence whatever his intelligence or intellect.

"His sentence should reflect what he has done.

"The law should be reformed to prevent this from happening again so that considerations, such as, low intelligence do not influence sentence."

Julie Bindel, Justice for Women spokesman, criticised the sentence saying it created a "charter for rapists" in a legal climate where few rapists were convicted of their crimes.

Ms Bindel added: "Archibald should have gone down for ten years.

"He will remain a danger."