totalgenius
Inactive User
Detectives to question 52-year-old suspect over more than 100 attacks on elderly women in past 17 years.
Detectives hunting one of the most prolific sex offenders in British criminal history made a "significant" arrest today, 17 years after the serial rapist first struck.
A 52-year-old man was arrested at home early today and was being held at an undisclosed police station by officers from Scotland Yard. He will be questioned over attacks on more than 108 women aged between 68 and 88.
The development comes after Operation Minstead, the largest investigation in the Metropolitan police's recent past, to find a serial attacker known as the Night Stalker.
Detectives have said the attacker is positively linked through semen traces and crime pattern analysis to at least four rapes and his stalking ground is mainly in south-east London.
Police working on Operation Minstead have used criminal profilers, taken voluntary DNA from up to 900 people and offered a reward of £40,000 for help in finding the Night Stalker.
One profiler has labelled him a gerontophile and some victims have described how, despite the horrific nature of the attacks on them, he had shown tenderness and apologised for his actions.
Although the vast majority of his victims have been women, police said they also include 10 elderly men, one of whom suffered a sexual attack.
Police said the man has raped four victims, one of whom suffered horrific injuries and almost died in surgery.
The Night Stalker first struck in 1992 when an 84-year-old woman was raped after a break-in at the flat where she lived alone in the Shirley area of Croydon.
A DNA sample was recovered but no match existed on what was then a small database. In the weeks that followed, intensive local inquiries by police failed to produce any solid leads.
His DNA was identified again five years later during police inquiries into a series of attacks on elderly women in south London, Kent and Surrey.
All the victims were living alone and were woken in the night by a man dressed in black, his features obscured by a balaclava. He shone a powerful torch into their eyes. In some cases he turned off their electricity before subjecting them to sexual assaults.
Police believe he may have stalked some of his victims or spied on them in their own gardens. He was known to be a light-skinned man of Caribbean origin, according to victims.
Extensive research by scientists was carried out into DNA profiling in an attempt to narrow down the 21,000 suspects over the years.
More than 900 gave their DNA voluntarily but the task facing detectives has always been huge.
In July, the rapist's oldest victim, Rose White (not her real name), found the strength to relive her harrowing experience.
In a moving interview published in the Times, Rose, a retired book-keeper who was 88 when she was attacked at her bungalow in Orpington, described how she was watching late-night television in bed when a hooded man appeared.
He told her that if she kept quiet and handed over her money, "you won't get hurt", but after taking £60 from her purse, he assaulted her so violently that she passed out. When Rose came to, the intruder raped her for a second time, ignoring her anguished pleas: "I said, no, please, can't you go and get a prostitute? Why pick on old ladies?" After recovering a glove that had slipped off, he left her bleeding profusely from severe internal wounds.
"I lay there for hours not knowing if he was still in the bungalow."
If Rose had not managed to activate her personal alarm, she would almost certainly have bled to death.
Police sources said the man was being held at a police station in London and would face questioning today.
By Sandra Laville, Crime correspondent
Night Stalker rapes: man arrested | UK news | guardian.co.uk
Detectives hunting one of the most prolific sex offenders in British criminal history made a "significant" arrest today, 17 years after the serial rapist first struck.
A 52-year-old man was arrested at home early today and was being held at an undisclosed police station by officers from Scotland Yard. He will be questioned over attacks on more than 108 women aged between 68 and 88.
The development comes after Operation Minstead, the largest investigation in the Metropolitan police's recent past, to find a serial attacker known as the Night Stalker.
Detectives have said the attacker is positively linked through semen traces and crime pattern analysis to at least four rapes and his stalking ground is mainly in south-east London.
Police working on Operation Minstead have used criminal profilers, taken voluntary DNA from up to 900 people and offered a reward of £40,000 for help in finding the Night Stalker.
One profiler has labelled him a gerontophile and some victims have described how, despite the horrific nature of the attacks on them, he had shown tenderness and apologised for his actions.
Although the vast majority of his victims have been women, police said they also include 10 elderly men, one of whom suffered a sexual attack.
Police said the man has raped four victims, one of whom suffered horrific injuries and almost died in surgery.
The Night Stalker first struck in 1992 when an 84-year-old woman was raped after a break-in at the flat where she lived alone in the Shirley area of Croydon.
A DNA sample was recovered but no match existed on what was then a small database. In the weeks that followed, intensive local inquiries by police failed to produce any solid leads.
His DNA was identified again five years later during police inquiries into a series of attacks on elderly women in south London, Kent and Surrey.
All the victims were living alone and were woken in the night by a man dressed in black, his features obscured by a balaclava. He shone a powerful torch into their eyes. In some cases he turned off their electricity before subjecting them to sexual assaults.
Police believe he may have stalked some of his victims or spied on them in their own gardens. He was known to be a light-skinned man of Caribbean origin, according to victims.
Extensive research by scientists was carried out into DNA profiling in an attempt to narrow down the 21,000 suspects over the years.
More than 900 gave their DNA voluntarily but the task facing detectives has always been huge.
In July, the rapist's oldest victim, Rose White (not her real name), found the strength to relive her harrowing experience.
In a moving interview published in the Times, Rose, a retired book-keeper who was 88 when she was attacked at her bungalow in Orpington, described how she was watching late-night television in bed when a hooded man appeared.
He told her that if she kept quiet and handed over her money, "you won't get hurt", but after taking £60 from her purse, he assaulted her so violently that she passed out. When Rose came to, the intruder raped her for a second time, ignoring her anguished pleas: "I said, no, please, can't you go and get a prostitute? Why pick on old ladies?" After recovering a glove that had slipped off, he left her bleeding profusely from severe internal wounds.
"I lay there for hours not knowing if he was still in the bungalow."
If Rose had not managed to activate her personal alarm, she would almost certainly have bled to death.
Police sources said the man was being held at a police station in London and would face questioning today.
By Sandra Laville, Crime correspondent
Night Stalker rapes: man arrested | UK news | guardian.co.uk
