Arnhem appeal court has upheld the 16 year jail sentence imposed on Gerard T, found guilty last year of committing four rapes in the Utrecht area.

The long sentence is partly due to concerns that T may reoffend, the court said. The youth of his victims and the violence involved were also reasons to impose such a jail term, the court said. Sixteen years is the maximum sentence T could serve.

The rapes were committed between 1995 and 2001. T knocked his victims from their bikes close to the city’s university district and took them to secluded places where he raped them. One girl, aged 16, was left tied to a tree.

Police believe he is responsible for 22 incidents in total but in many cases there was not enough evidence to take to court.

The 53-year-old was only linked to the rapes in the summer of 2014 after he stole a decoy bike, placed by police to catch bicycle thieves. He gave a DNA sample which matched the profile of the serial rapist in Utrecht.