Price had been convicted of rape in 1984

Price - who had been living with his girlfriend in the Grangetown area of Cardiff - was caught after he picked up a 26-year-old woman as she left a nightclub in Cardiff city centre.

But, the court heard, he was spotted by a cab driver who took down his number and reported him to the police.

"The woman believed he was a genuine cabbie and got in before realising that it was not a taxi," Steven Donoghue, prosecuting, told the hearing.

"He stopped the car and touched her thigh... He tried to make her perform a sex act on him. She vigorously refused and tried to get out of the car.

"She shouted: "Let me out". At this point the vehicle started moving and she was pushed out of the car. She was then picked up by a genuine taxi driver and taken home."

You have a history of serious sexual offences and are a dangerous menace to women

Judge Mark Furness

The court heard Price had a history of preying on women using the same method of pretending to be a cab driver.

He was just 18 when he carried out his first sex attack.

Later in 1984, he tricked a 22-year-old woman into believing he was a driver, then nine weeks later he raped a woman after picking her up outside a Merthyr Tydfil nightclub.

Soon after being released from prison in June 1998 Price carried out an indecent assault on a woman in Caerphilly.

Jailing Price for seven years, Judge Mark Furness said it was clear he had continued to use this technique of pretending to be a taxi driver.

"You have a history of serious sexual offences and are a dangerous menace to women.

"The public need to be protected from people like you," said Judge Furness.

Price was also ordered to register as a sex offender.