Perverted taxi driver rapist Raymond Shorten threatened to kill himself if his daughter did not support him

She has revealed that perverted taxi driver and rapist Raymond Shorten threatened to kill himself if his daughter did not stand by him.

Leah Mates, 19, also announced that she wants to change her last name via affidavit because she wants to avoid any connection with him.

Last week, Shorten, 50, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping two women in his taxi in 2022 – and a seven-year-old child a decade earlier.

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But yesterday Leah told how the desperate father of seven pleaded with his family to stand by him – and insisted on his innocence. She said: “He made himself a victim. When he was first questioned in 2021, he said to us children: ‘If one more person doesn’t believe me, I’ll kill myself.'”

These images show Shorten posing as a family man before he was exposed as a multiple rapist.

He posed for snaps with Leah, her mother Tracey and brother Kyle at Christmas as they walked to school, played football and were at the beach. Leah and Tracey, who said she was also raped by the perpetrator, revealed how Shorten’s true colours emerged.

Tracey, 44, said: “When I started dating him, he showered me with declarations of love. We moved in together within six weeks. Within three months I was pregnant with his child and by Christmas we were engaged.”

“He had already started abusing me and I was doubting myself. The word narcissist gets thrown around, but he is actually a narcissist. He actually believes he is innocent. But when you’re in the middle of it, you just can’t see out.

“I used to have his name tattooed. I had it covered up and put karma on it. When he saw it, he laughed. I said it might take 10 years, it might take 20 years, but it’s coming. Ten years to the day he was arrested. So it’s coming.”

Shorten’s first known victim came forward to her grandmother in 2020, who told her that he had raped her as a child in 2012.

Despite a Garda investigation, he kept his taxi licence until 2022, when he assaulted two passengers. Tracey believes they would have been spared this if action had been taken to revoke his licence in 2020. She added: “As soon as he was investigated for a sexual assault, they should have revoked his SPSV licence.”

In a statement last week, Gardaí said they had revoked Shorten’s SPSV licence “with the commencement of investigations into these cases in 2022”.

Tracey said he often left her alone and probably had several affairs. She said: “At the time he was a milkman and also a courier. He got 500 euros for that and he gave me 70 euros to live on.”

“I took all the children from the previous relationship, he was there when they were dropped off and then he disappeared. I had six children and was pregnant with one of them, in a two-bedroom house.”

Leah also spoke about the moment she and her mother learned of the allegations that Shorten had raped a child he knew. She said: “I was in the kitchen and I just started crying, but I believed her immediately.”

“I had blocked him two weeks earlier because after Covid he only texted me when he was drunk. He was constantly lying and it was annoying me. This year he also followed me. I got scared so I just blocked him.”

Tracey added: “The grandmother and others came into our kitchen and gave me the victim’s letter.

“I read it and without hesitation said, ‘That’s absolutely true.’ I called Leah into the kitchen and said, ‘You’re going to read this and make up your own mind, it doesn’t matter what you think.’ Then she immediately said, ‘Yes, he did it.’

Mother and daughter also described how the “creep” was often caught watching them and following them from his car after they had broken off contact.

Tracey said: “He was sitting at the end of the road watching them. He was sitting at the end of the road like a creep. I took two buses to school and he followed me. He ended up getting paranoid. I think he knew we knew it was coming his way so he started misbehaving.”

Leah now wants her surname Shorten to be legally removed forever. She added: “I have been calling myself Mates (mum’s name) until now, but I will have the name Shorten changed by deed. I don’t want anything to do with it anymore.”

“People go on my Facebook and make angry faces and things like that under pictures and posts from years ago.

“I don’t choose my parents, they don’t say anything about me. I’m glad the girls got justice but I don’t like the way I’m being attacked. I uploaded a post from Father’s Day saying I think he’s my hero.

“Then these people go back to posts from six years ago and make angry faces. How can they sleep well knowing they are doing this to a 19-year-old who didn’t know this about her father?”

Leah also recounted how she went to Shorten’s trial and the beast tried to blame her. She said: “He stared at me and said we’ve never had a problem, why are you doing this to me? He just sighed and shook his head. He didn’t like me being in the room because I was his ‘baby princess’.”

A disillusioned Shorten repeatedly protested his innocence to his family despite compelling evidence and even claimed that he would one day be awarded compensation.

Tracey said: “His whole story for the last two years has been, ‘I didn’t do it, it will all come out in the end.'”

“I will get compensation and share it with you. He will die on that hill claiming he didn’t do it, rather than admitting he did it and getting a lesser sentence. In his eyes, he was always the victim.”

Tracey also spoke of her fears that something might have happened to one of her own children after learning that Shorten had raped a child.

She said: “Even now I would ask her and him: Are you sure nothing happened?”

Tracey, who now uses a wheelchair, said Shorten constantly attacked her – once kicking her in the back during her pregnancy – which she believes contributed to her condition.

Now that justice has been served, both women hope to put years of trauma and abuse behind them. But they say their thoughts first are with the victims of the evil Shorten.

Leah said: “Honestly, I don’t think a prison sentence is enough to give the girls justice for what he did to them. I just feel so sorry for the girls.”

“He tried to say they initiated it, so look around. He really believes he’s the victim here. I can tell you that’s what he’s saying here.”

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