YORK paedophile Bryan Stanford is claiming he is a victim of a human rights violation as he launches appeals against his life sentence and child abuse convictions.

A York jury convicted him in June of repeatedly raping and indecently assaulting two brothers aged six and 13.

The Evening Press understands he claims the "two strikes and you're out" law violates his human rights because it gave Judge Paul Hoffman no alternative but to impose a life sentence after his second conviction for rape.

The child rapist also claims he did not have a fair trial because the jury were shown obscene photographs he had made of one of his boy victims and other reasons.

Stanford, 51, of Thorn Nook, off Malton Road, York, is currently serving the life sentence imposed last month at York Crown Court.

The jury at his trial convicted him of three rapes and five indecent assaults on two brothers aged six and 13, and of possessing child porn photographs with intent to sell them.

He had previously pleaded guilty to two charges of taking the photographs and after the verdicts pleaded guilty to failure to comply with the sex offenders' register.

The court heard that although he had registered his York address with police, he had not told them of his regular visits to the brothers, as he had to do by law.

He has previous sex convictions, including kidnapping a girl in Norfolk, raping her in a vehicle and threatening to kill her.

Because of the Norfolk sex conviction, the York rape convictions meant that under the "two strikes and you're out" law, he received an automatic life sentence.