Sadistic rapist serving sentence for five-hour attack on Sheffield student admits to downloading necrophilia pornography

Leo Del Pellegrino appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday, when he admitted to five counts of possessing extreme pornography.

In addition to downloading pornography which involved necrophilia, Del Pellegrino also admitted to possessing pornography in which acts are committed that 'threaten the life' of those involved.

When Del Pellegrino was sentenced to 17 years in prison on July 19, Judge Julian Goose told him he believed his attack on the young woman was motivated by his desire to carry out his 'real rape fantasies'.

He said: "It was your purpose that she didn't consent. It was your desire because, I'm satisfied, you were acting out the images you had seen on the internet."

It took jurors just under a day to find Del Pellegrino guilty of 11 offences, including nine counts of rape and one count of attempted rape.

The court heard how in the run-up to the incident, Del Pellegrino and several of his work colleagues, all of whom were visiting Sheffield on a business trip, had gone for a meal and drinks.

During the course of the evening he began scouring profiles across numerous dating apps in a bid to find a victim to prey upon.

"In effect, you were casting a net to see which woman you might find,"

Judge Goose told Del Pellegrino, adding: "[You were motivated by] your clear obsession with pornography of real rape." Del Pellegrino, an IT consultant, was found to have used search terms such as 'Asian rape' and 'real rape video' on his computer, prior to the incident taking place.

After making contact with his victim, a Chinese national studying in Sheffield, Del Pellegrino convinced the young woman to meet him outside a shop near her flat.

He managed to gain access to her flat by telling her he needed to use the bathroom, and once inside he began carrying out the sickening ordeal which lasted for around five hours.

Not only did Del Pellegrino rape the woman repeatedly, but he also restrained her by tying her hands together, strangled her, slashed her on her back with a craft knife and wrote obscene graffiti on intimate areas of her body using a felt tip.

Del Pellegrino humiliated the woman even further by taking pictures of her in the degrading state he left her in and threatened to put them on the internet and send them to all of the contacts in her phone.

Del Pellegrino, of School Lane, Addlestone, Surrey, admitted to a string of charges before the trial which relate to the use of extreme pornography, including media that depicts women being raped at knifepoint. He was also sentenced for those offences last month.

He is due to be sentenced for the new set of charges at Sheffield Crown Court next month.