A rapist jailed for 18 years has lost a further bid to appeal against his conviction.

William Henry Kelly was found guilty following a 13-day trial of 10 counts of rape, four offences of indecent assault and two of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

His offences were committed against three separate women, with whom he was in a relationship.

He was sentenced to a total of 18 years’ imprisonment in May 2017.

Former removal firm boss Kelly, who lived in Peel, first appealed against his conviction in September of that year but this was dismissed.

He was then refused leave to appeal to the Privy Council, the appeal court judges ruling that there was nothing to persuade them that there was a serious risk that a serious miscarriage of justice had occurred.

In May 2018 the Privy Council refused Kelly permission for special leave to appeal for the same reason.

But in January this year, he made a fresh bid to appeal against his conviction, claiming new evidence had emerged.

He alleged witness tampering and intimidation by the police and Attorney General, non-disclosure or suppression of materials relevant to the fresh evidence and a refusal or failure of the police to investigate his claims.

He alleged the new evidence would establish that victim C had ’lied, fabricated and destroyed evidence’, colluded with a prosecution witness Y and/or victim B and deleted digital messages, recovered in October 2018 from telecommunications devices belonging to her.

But judge of appeal Jeremy Storey QC and Deemster Cook dismissed Kelly’s appeal bid. In a judgment, they said: ’We are wholly unpersuaded that there exists a powerful probability that an erroneous result has been perpetrated at the trial or the first appeal’

They said it was not necessary to reopen the final determination of the first appeal to avoid real injustice as the circumstances are not exceptional so as to make it appropriate to do so.

The appeal court judges said the substance of the ’fresh’ expert evidence was available for use at the first appeal and did not demonstrate that the integrity of the trial or the first appeal was critically undermined.

’We do not doubt the safety of the appellant’s convictions,’ they said.