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It became clear that there
was a pattern of attacks
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on elderly people within
the South East London area...
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To rape them and sexually assault
them - hideous crimes.
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Operation Minstead
had gone on years
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and became a subject of derision
as far as the police were concerned.
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The fact that it's elderly people
in kind of the autumn of their lives
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and something like this
happens to them,
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I can't imagine
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any of them ever came anywhere near
recovering from it.
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I knew I had to do everything
I could to bring that to an end.
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It was a crime
of almost breath-taking callousness.
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The man
who tried to kill her
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will never be free to harm again.
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The audio
was too graphic to be broadcast.
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The life sentence may provide some
closure for his victims' families.
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Nine men were killed when the
inferno swept through the building.
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..targeted young women
unable to defend themselves.
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Colin Sutton was
a detective chief inspector
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and senior investigating officer
in the Metropolitan Police.
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He led the investigations
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into some of the most-complex
and high-profile cases ever,
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bringing dangerous criminals
to justice.
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He showed
his cowardliness...
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- ..then heard screaming...
- The Night Stalker...
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..pulls out the gun.
Another 146 victims.
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In this series
he will take you inside those cases
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and show you how he caught
these criminals
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using nothing
but pure detective work.
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This is The Real Manhunter.
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..now been found guilty
on all 25 of those charges.
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..the oldest victim, 89.
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The officer in charge
described it as a senseless tragedy.
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The life sentence
may provide some closure
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for his victims' families.
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It became clear we were dealing with
an evil human being,
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a ruthless individual.
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A lot of his victims
suffered at his hands
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but suffered in silence
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and never actually reported them
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but carried it with them
to their graves.
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The Night Stalker was a clever
and sophisticated criminal.
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There's no doubt of that.
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He thought about what he was doing.
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He thought about
how he might get caught
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and he thought of ways
to avoid getting caught.
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For 17 years this man had struck fear
into a community,
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and that couldn't continue.
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I knew I had to do everything I could
to bring that to an end.
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An investigation
is underway
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following a burglary
and sexual assault
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in the Shirley area of Croydon
last night.
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The victim, an elderly woman
in her 80s,
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was woken by an intruder
who had broken in.
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Police have yet to confirm if it is
linked to a series of attacks
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by a man known as the Night Stalker.
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During the 1990s there was a pattern
of attacks on elderly people
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within the South East London area.
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Speculation - could one person
be responsible,
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who by then had been given
the nickname 'Night Stalker'.
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This had been running for 17 years,
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and there didn't seem to be any
answers as to who this man was.
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At that particular period
in South East London,
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there were thousands
of elderly people
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living in fear of this criminal.
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He had an air of invincibility
about him.
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The numbers were large.
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Mainly they were incidents where
a prowler had broken in at night,
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woken up the occupants,
who were always elderly,
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occasionally
indecently assaulted them
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but not always indecently assaulted
them,
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and on several occasions
he'd raped them.
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You couldn't serve
as either a uniformed or detective
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in South East London and not know
about Operation Minstead.
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I was promoted from detective
sergeant to detective inspector
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in January 2009.
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I was selected to join
Operation Minstead
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and I'd been there
about three months
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and Colin appeared early summer
of 2009.
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Up until Colin arriving, I was kind
of the only manager on the ground,
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so to have another...for Colin
to come as SIO was a relief to me.
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In April 2009, I was still the leader
of my murder team at Putney.
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The new commander of the Homicide
and Serious Crime Command
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left a message for me saying
could I go up and see him
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at Scotland Yard just to have a chat
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and then asked me what I knew about
Operation Minstead.
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I just knew that Operation Minstead
was South East London,
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that it was
a long-running investigation
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into a series of rapes and burglaries
of old people.
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My team had been successful
in other cases, high-profile cases,
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and just wanted somebody
to have a look at it.
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This is Lewisham Police Station
where Operation Minstead was based.
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I'd never been here before.
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I was asked to come over
and have a look
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and see if I could come up with
any ideas.
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This is where it was based,
so I came.
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But I met the team
and realised how small it was
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and how difficult their task was
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in trying to catch this guy
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that had been committing these
terrible offences for so long.
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It was a case
that seriously needed solving.
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I was pleased to have the opportunity
to try and contribute to that.
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When I first came here
to take a look,
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I knew very little about the case,
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and I was brought up to speed
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by going to a meeting
of all the supervisors.
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We sat down and they were discussing
the lines of inquiry
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and what was going on
and I made a few notes.
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The first one was
the suspect's description.
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That was based on victim statements
and victim accounts.
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It was very, very generic,
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but it was allegedly a black male,
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light skinned to dark skinned,
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normally dressed in dark clothing
from head to foot.
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The age range varied
from the 30s to...upper 40s,
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quite well built, average height
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and normally wearing a balaclava
or some sort of face covering.
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And then it was obviously
the offender's DNA,
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which at that stage had been left
at various scenes,
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00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:14,120
so we were using that to eliminate
people in a mass DNA screening.
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One of our victims had said
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that when the perpetrator
had woken her up,
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he was dressed in dark clothing,
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potentially could have been wearing
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a motorcycle helmet
and motorcycle clothing,
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and then when he left,
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she thought she heard
the engine of a motorcycle.
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00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:32,080
So on that basis,
a line of inquiry was started
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to trace motorcycle licence holders
in that area.
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It was a very large line of inquiry
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and it essentially was suspended
pretty soon into my tenure.
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Where you've got lots of cases
going back over many years,
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there's no substitute
for just locking yourself away
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to get a feel of what they were
about and what was happening.
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So, for the first kind of couple
of weeks I was a sponge,
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I was soaking up the information
rather than sort of processing it
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and thinking about it
and looking at what it might mean
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and where we could go.
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I got on very well with Colin.
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He was an established SIO with
a good reputation on the command.
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I was a brand-new detective
inspector, kind of finding my feet.
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I knew about investigation and I
knew about homicide investigations
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and obviously this type
of investigation, as well.
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Colin had an advantage
in that he could brief upwards
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with the management team
of the Homicide Command.
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He brought elements
in the investigation
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that I couldn't bring to it
and obviously another perspective.
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What became clear
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is that these offences were confined
to a pretty exact geographical area.
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If you took that part of Greater
London, south of the River Thames,
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and to the east of the A23
at Croydon,
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that was his hunting ground.
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So it's like a quarter
of Greater London.
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And there were one or two offences
just over the border into Surrey,
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but mostly it was kind of
outer South East London.
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What came to be regarded as offence
number one in the Minstead series
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took place in Wickham Road in Shirley
in October 1992.
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The police got a message
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that there'd been a burglary
at a bungalow
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where an 84-year-old woman
lived on her own.
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And when police turned up
and responded to this call,
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that was when the victim
confided in them
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that not only had she been burgled
and had property stolen,
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but that she'd also been raped.
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Now, most burglars run a mile
if there is somebody in the house.
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They want to burgle a house
that's empty.
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But in this case
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there was interaction
between the burglar and the victim.
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It was late in the evening
on 12 October 1992.
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A man in a balaclava broke in, went
down the side of this house here,
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removed a pane of glass from
the window.
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He'd removed it whole.
He hadn't smashed it.
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He'd kind of peeled away the fitting
and taken out the pane of glass
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and set it down quite sort of
carefully
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and had gone in through the window.
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At some point during his progress
through the house,
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he'd been removing lightbulbs
from their fittings,
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presumably so that if the victim
woke up
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and tried to switch the light on
then there would be no light.
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He also cut the telephone wires,
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because when the ordeal was over
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and the victim went to try
and phone for help,
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she found that her phone
had been disconnected.
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He went into her bedroom,
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and this 84-year-old lady
was confronted with the horror
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of being awoken in her own bed by a
figure looming over her with a torch,
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a dark figure,
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hand over her mouth,
telling her not to make a noise.
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And her ordeal went on
for something like two hours.
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And during that time
the intruder raped her
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before stealing some jewellery
and 250 pounds in cash.
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A terrible crime,
a terrible ordeal
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for an old lady to have to go through
in her own home.
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You can only imagine how terrifying
it must have been for her
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in the dark in that house on her own.
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She should feel safe there -
it's her own home,
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and she's got this intruder
doing these terrible things to her.
198
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He eventually leaves her
after two hours
199
00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:46,040
and she wants to raise the alarm and
finds that her phone's been cut off -
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she can't phone anybody.
201
00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:50,240
So she walks along to where her niece
lives nearby
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and she asks her niece
to raise the alarm,
203
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and police are told
that there's been a burglary,
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and it's just been
an overnight burglary,
205
00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:00,840
and they turn out,
attend the burglary,
206
00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:05,840
and it's at that point that the lady
reveals that she's been raped,
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00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:08,280
that she's been raped in her own home
in the middle of the night
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by this intruder.
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00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:11,960
Once he'd overpowered his victim,
210
00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:14,640
he used to spend considerable time
in the address,
211
00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:16,240
either going around himself
212
00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:18,480
or speaking to the actual victim
themselves,
213
00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:20,040
and he showed caring attributes,
214
00:12:20,120 --> 00:12:22,200
which is very unusual
for an offender.
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00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:24,000
The victim told them
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00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:28,960
that the rapist had kissed her
on the lips and on the cheek.
217
00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:33,240
It had the investigators a little
bit sort of confused and bemused.
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00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:37,960
Is he trying to kind of make things
right and just smooth things over
219
00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:40,320
and maintain a good relationship
with them?
220
00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:44,760
Or is he trying to persuade them
that they shouldn't tell the police
221
00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:47,520
and, you know, they shouldn't come
after him?
222
00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:50,520
Almost more disturbing and confusing
for the victims
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00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:53,480
who were probably
not able to think straight,
224
00:12:53,560 --> 00:12:56,920
having just been the victim
of such a horrible crime.
225
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:02,320
It's just this really unusual way
in which he treated the victim,
226
00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:06,120
almost with sensitivity
and a degree of compassion,
227
00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:12,760
having just inflicted the most
barbaric of acts and assaults on her.
228
00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:18,920
There really is no other way to
investigate an allegation of rape
229
00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:24,640
but to subject the victim again
to another intrusive
230
00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:26,920
and, you know,
uncomfortable experience
231
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:31,040
of being medically examined
and forensic swabs being taken,
232
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:32,760
because if you haven't got
the evidence
233
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:35,000
you can get from that examination
of those swabs,
234
00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:38,800
you're never going to prove the case
further down the line anyway.
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00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:44,800
So she's taken to the suite and
she's examined and swabs are taken,
236
00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:46,800
and from those swabs
and particularly from her clothing,
237
00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:49,000
from her pyjamas
and some of the bedding here,
238
00:13:49,080 --> 00:13:52,280
there was semen,
and it was from that semen
239
00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:54,560
that a full male DNA profile
was later distilled.
240
00:13:57,520 --> 00:14:00,600
In 1992 the use of DNA
as an investigative tool
241
00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:02,960
was kind of in its infancy.
242
00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:05,680
The database was very small,
243
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:08,680
so although there was semen present
from the rape...
244
00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:13,840
on both the swabs
and the old lady's pyjamas...
245
00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:17,840
it wasn't until some years later
246
00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:21,160
that those objects
were resubmitted to the laboratory
247
00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:24,440
and yielded a male DNA profile.
248
00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:26,200
At first the police weren't aware
249
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:29,440
that, you know, this was gonna be
part of a series.
250
00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:34,680
Obviously there had been no other
similar offences in the recent past,
251
00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:39,440
and this was thought, really,
to be very much of a one-off.
252
00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:41,680
The investigation stayed
with the local borough.
253
00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:45,200
It's their task for the local CID
to investigate it,
254
00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,000
and so it stayed there,
and they did investigate it
255
00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:50,880
and they got nowhere
and didn't find the suspect,
256
00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:53,280
and it was kind of filed as unsolved.
257
00:14:54,440 --> 00:15:00,120
As time went on, we realised
that this was a series
258
00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:02,560
and that these sort of houses
259
00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:07,560
and this type of 1930s
semi-detached houses or bungalows
260
00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:10,080
in these essentially quiet
and residential
261
00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:12,160
parts of South East London
262
00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:13,920
were the hunting ground
for the Night Stalker.
263
00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:28,920
Six years later, in September 1998,
264
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:30,560
there was a significant attack
265
00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:34,760
just outside the Met Police area
in Warlingham in Surrey.
266
00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:36,800
It's important in the story
of the Night Stalker
267
00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:40,240
because it was in Warlingham,
in this road,
268
00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:45,120
that the second offence took place
where the suspect left DNA.
269
00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:48,600
The 81-year-old victim was in bed,
lived alone.
270
00:15:48,680 --> 00:15:50,400
She had mobility problems.
271
00:15:50,480 --> 00:15:52,480
And the suspect came along,
272
00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:55,240
entered through that gate,
down the side of the house,
273
00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:59,480
and he had a large screwdriver,
and he tried to prise a window open.
274
00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:02,560
And then he realised there was a key
275
00:16:02,640 --> 00:16:05,000
hanging on a string on the fence
near the back door.
276
00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:06,040
The victim had left that
277
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:09,520
for her carers and her family to let
themselves in if they needed to.
278
00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:10,920
So he used that -
279
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:13,120
'why bother with the screwdriver
when I've got the key?'
280
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:18,400
But those actions of trying
to break in with the screwdriver
281
00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:23,200
became very important, because every
tool like this, every screwdriver,
282
00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:25,600
has a unique shape.
283
00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:29,480
Microscopically the marks
that that screwdriver makes
284
00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:32,480
are different to other screwdrivers.
285
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:36,080
And what happens
is the scenes of crime officers
286
00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:40,480
will take a plaster cast
from the mark that that leaves
287
00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:45,040
and that can then be microscopically
photographed and examined.
288
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,520
And when there are other marks
at other crime scenes,
289
00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:50,240
they can be compared,
290
00:16:50,320 --> 00:16:54,400
and the comparison of those marks
can link two crime scenes
291
00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:56,400
in very much the same way
292
00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:59,720
that a DNA profile or a fingerprint
might link them.
293
00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:02,400
He was in the premises for some time,
294
00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:06,760
and he did make an attempt
to rape the victim
295
00:17:06,840 --> 00:17:08,960
but it wasn't successful.
296
00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:13,200
He asks her for money,
and she said she didn't have any.
297
00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:19,680
Then he climbs on top of her and he
begins to indecently assault her.
298
00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:22,440
He tries to pull her legs apart -
he's going to rape her -
299
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:23,600
he undid his trousers,
300
00:17:24,880 --> 00:17:28,840
but she yells out in pain
from her chronic arthritis
301
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:31,280
as he tries to move her legs,
302
00:17:31,360 --> 00:17:35,000
then she almost feigns illness,
feigns that she's passed out.
303
00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:38,200
And this seemed to concern him,
and he stopped.
304
00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:42,520
In fact he had so much concern
for her, it seems,
305
00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:45,720
he then tried to find a pulse
to make sure she was still alive
306
00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:48,000
and he picked up her wrists
and looked at that.
307
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:52,960
And he left. And the ordeal for her
was over quite quickly.
308
00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:55,040
There was a genuine fear
309
00:17:55,120 --> 00:17:57,080
of a reprisal.
310
00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:00,720
In this case, the fear was more
that the intruder would return,
311
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:05,320
and so it wasn't until the following
morning when she spoke to her son
312
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:07,000
that she reported the offence.
313
00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:09,440
He wasn't able to perform the act,
314
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:12,880
but in doing so he did ejaculate,
315
00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:15,640
and there was semen found
on the carpet in her bedroom.
316
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:20,520
From that semen a full male
DNA profile was extracted,
317
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:25,480
and it matched exactly the profile
from the 1992 offence.
318
00:18:25,560 --> 00:18:28,760
Now we had two rapes by the same
unknown person.
319
00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:32,640
We had a series.
We had Operation Minstead.
320
00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:36,560
This then enlightened them
321
00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:41,080
to the prospect that they were
dealing with a serial rapist,
322
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:44,640
a serial sex offender
targeting elderly people.
323
00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:48,560
It wasn't long before this
started filtering out to the media
324
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:51,000
and reports of sexual offences
325
00:18:51,080 --> 00:18:55,320
began being attributed to someone
who we call the Night Stalker.
326
00:18:56,480 --> 00:18:59,760
Night Stalker was something
invented by the press.
327
00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:02,800
The people running the investigation
in the early 2000s
328
00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:04,480
were not particularly happy with,
329
00:19:04,560 --> 00:19:07,840
because it was felt
that it accentuated the fear
330
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:10,120
that these people should be in.
331
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:13,120
The police didn't particularly like
that phrase being used,
332
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:17,640
but it was easy for us
to describe to the public
333
00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:21,080
that this was someone
who was breaking in at night time.
334
00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:23,080
Part of the strategy very much
335
00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:27,920
was to try not to have elderly ladies
in South East London
336
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:30,760
having to live their lives in fear.
337
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:34,520
If you look at the media reporting
of Operation Minstead
338
00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:36,200
throughout its history,
339
00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:39,800
the focus is always on
the sexual element of the crimes,
340
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:42,920
and what this does, or this did,
341
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:48,240
was to, I think, focus the methods
of investigation that we used
342
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:52,640
onto those which are used
for rape and sexual offences,
343
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:55,320
and very much that became DNA.
344
00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:04,000
The team was concentrating
their efforts
345
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:07,040
on trying to get DNA swabs
from suspects,
346
00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:10,480
compare that with the DNA they had
from the first two crime scenes.
347
00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:14,880
I'm pretty sure
that those on that team in 1998
348
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:19,720
would have thought
that it would be quite a quick job.
349
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:22,120
They just needed to find this guy -
350
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:25,160
and his DNA,
we'll put in on the database,
351
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:29,160
once that DNA's there, it matches up,
game over, job done.
352
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:31,800
Sadly that's not what happened.
353
00:20:31,880 --> 00:20:35,520
The DNA in itself
ultimately proved to be fruitless.
354
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,280
They were trying to get scientists
to do really difficult things.
355
00:20:39,360 --> 00:20:43,160
The two main scientific
pieces of work that went on
356
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:48,880
were around physical characteristics
from the DNA profile and ancestry.
357
00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:54,040
The profile showed this man
was black by ethnicity
358
00:20:54,120 --> 00:20:59,880
but that his skin
was likely to be pale, freckled,
359
00:20:59,960 --> 00:21:04,120
and that his hair would be ginger
or very light.
360
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:06,960
The ancestry said
361
00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:10,800
that our suspect was likely have come
from the Lesser Antilles
362
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:12,920
and most likely Trinidad and Tobago.
363
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:16,160
What that caused the investigation
team to do
364
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:20,600
was to take the publicity campaign
about Operation Minstead to Trinidad,
365
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:25,000
in case somebody over there
recognised the person it might be.
366
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:28,360
They wanted to go for a little swim
after work.
367
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:31,480
A photographer from
a Sunday newspaper was on hand
368
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:35,080
to catch them in their speedos
lying around the pool.
369
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,640
A rather unfortunate interpretation
was put on that.
370
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,480
They could have been more circumspect
in what they did.
371
00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:42,880
It resulted in an article
in one of the newspapers
372
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:44,480
where they're called
the Frying Squad.
373
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:49,640
It just kind of debased
the sort of gravity of the situation
374
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:51,240
and of the investigation,
375
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:53,760
and ultimately it was something
376
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:57,280
that didn't take the investigation
1mm further.
377
00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:00,960
When I arrived in January 2009,
378
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:04,680
a very large mass DNA screening
exercise had been in operation
379
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:06,520
for about 11 years.
380
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:08,920
Certainly it involved officers
going to the home addresses
381
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:10,280
of people who'd been identified
382
00:22:10,360 --> 00:22:12,360
that might fit the description
of the suspect
383
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:14,720
and essentially persuading them
to give an elimination swab.
384
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:17,120
Then obviously that would be sent
to the Forensic Science Service.
385
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:20,760
And because of the age range
that was being looked at,
386
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:25,160
these were black men who'd
grown up in South East London
387
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:28,000
during the late 1970s and the 1980s.
388
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,200
And during that time,
389
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:34,120
I think that their contact
with the Metropolitan Police
390
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:36,760
may not necessarily
have been positive.
391
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:43,120
You're then going around and saying,
"Can I have a sample of your DNA
392
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:46,800
that we can compare
with our crime scene,"
393
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:48,960
and no matter how many promises
I made
394
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:51,880
that that sample would be destroyed
if it was not you,
395
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:57,040
the mistrust that had built up over
a couple of decades was still there,
396
00:22:57,120 --> 00:23:03,080
and it meant that cooperation
was rarely given, in truth.
397
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:06,960
We'd eliminated 2,000 people
and we had another 2,000 to do,
398
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,360
so that would have taken
another 11 years.
399
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,640
When I first went over there,
it just so happened that that week
400
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:18,240
they had had one man who
had offered up his swab for DNA,
401
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:21,160
which meant that the whole operation
402
00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:25,440
to try to find the Night Stalker
by DNA swabbing
403
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:29,000
was going to be fraught
with difficulties.
404
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:31,040
And I wrote in the margin of my book
405
00:23:31,120 --> 00:23:33,400
at that first meeting
a couple of days into my review,
406
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,280
"What if we didn't have DNA?"
407
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,000
The Night Stalker operated over
a very large area of London
408
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,200
in the South East,
south London and Surrey...
409
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,240
a total of about 2.5 million people.
410
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:50,200
Again, this is a typical road
411
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,400
right in the middle
of his favourite hunting grounds.
412
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:58,320
And you can see there 1930s
houses and bungalows, semis.
413
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:01,560
You can still point out houses
414
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:04,920
that show there's an old person
that lives there.
415
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:06,560
The house hasn't been modernised,
416
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,840
the garden is kept in a way and
hasn't been changed into a driveway.
417
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:15,720
And that was what he
based his crime upon.
418
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:20,160
Your typical Minstead victim
had their windows done in the '80s.
419
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,640
They were replaced by UPVC windows
with external beading.
420
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:29,880
And he knew that, so a lot of his
victims had the same sort of window
421
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:32,560
that he was very expert
at breaking in through,
422
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:35,320
and that was because it had
external beading he could rip out,
423
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:37,840
take the pane of glass out,
and he was in.
424
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,720
He would start his surveillance,
his sort of his reconnaissance,
425
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,360
days before he committed the offence,
426
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:48,200
but then he would often sit there
for hours at a time
427
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:50,840
looking to see what was going on
428
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,600
and to make sure he understood
what the habits were
429
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:55,000
in that particular address.
430
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,360
It adds another,
more sinister dimension
431
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:02,320
that he spent so long
researching his victims,
432
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,680
watching the premises and seeing
who was coming and going
433
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,680
and what their behaviour patterns
were
434
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:13,480
and just planning how he was going
to conduct his next attack.
435
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,920
The occupier went to bed,
436
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,360
and he could tell that by the lights
moving from downstairs to upstairs
437
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:20,720
and then going out.
438
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,640
He would look to make sure there was
only one person living there,
439
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:27,760
because by and large
he wanted to attack premises
440
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:29,240
where somebody lived on their own.
441
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,080
One of the first things
that I had to do
442
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:41,840
when I went over to look and do the,
sort of, review on Operation Minstead
443
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,440
was to get up to speed
with the old cases.
444
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:45,720
The most troubling of those
445
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:46,800
at that time
446
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:48,240
was a case in 1999
447
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:53,520
of an 88-year-old woman who lived on
her own in a bungalow in Orpington.
448
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,360
At 3:00 in the morning
449
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:01,640
she's awoken by sensing
that there's somebody in her bedroom,
450
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:03,320
and she looks up through the gloom
451
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:06,400
and sees that there's this man
standing at the foot of her bed.
452
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:13,960
He put a gloved hand over her mouth
and said, "I want your money."
453
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:18,400
And she sort of muttered something
and he took his hand away
454
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:22,840
and she said, "Look, there's no money
here in the bedroom.
455
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,360
If you want me to give you my money,
456
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:27,520
you'll have to get me up
and take me to my living room."
457
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:30,600
And so he sort of pulled her up
off of the bed,
458
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,200
ushered her through
to the living room,
459
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,280
where she found her purse
and her handbag
460
00:26:36,360 --> 00:26:37,560
and she gave him the purse,
461
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:42,360
and he emptied the contents
of the purse into his pockets.
462
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,320
He pulled her up from a chair
that she'd been sitting in,
463
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,320
placed her on the edge of the sofa...
464
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:55,040
pulled up her nightdress
and raped...
465
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,200
her several times.
466
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:00,440
And...
467
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:07,360
left her battered, bleeding,
in such a state
468
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,360
that when she was able to raise
the alarm
469
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,440
by pressing her CareLink
panic button,
470
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,960
police attended
and called an ambulance straightaway
471
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,480
and she was taken straight
to hospital.
472
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:25,080
She required emergency surgery.
473
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,920
It's the closest
that the Night Stalker ever came
474
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,360
to killing somebody there and then.
475
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:32,360
Had she not received medical help,
she would have died,
476
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:33,640
would have bled to death.
477
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,840
She never went back to her bungalow
where she'd been for 25 years.
478
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,080
She was discharged from hospital
into sheltered accommodation...
479
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,520
and although the physical injuries
had healed up,
480
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:49,960
the psychological injuries never did,
481
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:54,360
and she took that night of terror
and pain to the grave with her.
482
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,040
She was very wary,
very frightened, really.
483
00:27:59,120 --> 00:28:02,360
You see, it ruined her life
in a way, didn't it?
484
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,240
There she was,
living in her own home,
485
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,040
and suddenly the world fell apart.
486
00:28:10,120 --> 00:28:13,920
She always used to say she hoped
he would be caught before she died.
487
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,840
She had these terrible nightmares,
so she dreaded the nights,
488
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:18,840
she dreaded going to bed
489
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:20,800
and going to sleep.
490
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,040
Well, it would be very difficult
for me as a 56-year-old male
491
00:28:24,120 --> 00:28:25,720
to understand what an elderly victim
would go through
492
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:27,400
in these circumstances.
493
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,560
These are people
in their twilight of their years.
494
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,320
It must have been
absolutely terrifying for them.
495
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:34,160
And in relation to that,
496
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,720
they were staying awake
during the night
497
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:38,600
'cause they didn't wanna become
one of his victims,
498
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:40,080
and they were sleeping
during the day.
499
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:43,240
We saw it time and again
with the victims.
500
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:44,560
There was this sort of stoicism.
501
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,000
It's the, you know, the spirit of
the Blitz or something like that.
502
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:49,680
It's kind of...
'cause it was that generation...
503
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:55,400
and that's why they tried
in some ways to block it out.
504
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:56,640
They weren't complainers.
505
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,520
They didn't like speaking to the
police about what happened to them.
506
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,120
And we agreed that if the victims
of the Night Stalker
507
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,720
had been aged between 18 and 36
508
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:10,280
rather than 58 and 96,
509
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,400
there would have been much
more publicity
510
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:18,760
and that for some reason, the aged
victims were not as newsworthy.
511
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,360
You can't name victims
of sexual assaults,
512
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,720
and while that's quite right
and quite understandable,
513
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:29,800
it meant that the suffering that
they endured was somehow anonymised
514
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:32,360
and the impact of his crimes
515
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:34,880
I don't think was truly appreciated.
516
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,040
I have no doubt if it hadn't been
that particular generation
517
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:39,400
that had been targeted,
518
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,080
more resources would have had
to been brought to bear.
519
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,880
In May 2009,
520
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:55,680
I finally got my chance to see one
of these crime scenes for myself.
521
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:56,840
You know, I'd immersed myself
522
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,320
reading all this detail
about all these crimes going back.
523
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,080
It was down in Croydon
on a road called Princes Avenue.
524
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:09,840
For me, it was interesting not just
to see what an offence looked like
525
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:12,800
but to see how the team
were responding to it.
526
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:18,800
This bungalow was the scene of the
first Minstead Night Stalker offence
527
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:19,880
that I went to in person
528
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:21,880
after I started to go over there
to do my review.
529
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,720
There was a 78-year-old lady
who lived here on her own.
530
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,600
When we came to do our investigation,
531
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,920
we found that he'd gained entrance
by that gate at the side
532
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:34,320
to the rear garden.
533
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,920
He'd actually been into
another garden of a neighbour
534
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,480
and borrowed a pitchfork
from their shed
535
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:43,520
and used that to force
the window open at this bungalow.
536
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,120
She goes to bed, 9pm.
537
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,400
She's a frail woman,
she needs a frame to walk with.
538
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:57,120
She's awoken at 4:00 in the morning
by this, to her, huge man,
539
00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:59,480
sitting astride her on her bed.
540
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:01,960
It's dark and he's holding her down.
541
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:06,240
At some point when the Night
Stalker was on top of her,
542
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:08,280
he starts caressing her.
543
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,880
He asks her quite politely,
"Would you like more,"
544
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,400
and she equally politely declines
and said, "No, thank you."
545
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:17,120
It's another one of these cases
546
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:20,520
where he has shown a degree
of concern or care for the victim.
547
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:23,080
She needed to go to the toilet,
548
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,240
so she asks him if he'll go and fetch
her walking frame and he does,
549
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,120
and she'd also tried to find
an emergency pendant
550
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:29,560
on the bedside table,
551
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,800
but she didn't know the intruder had
seen it first and hidden it from her.
552
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,000
He's asked her about things
in the house.
553
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:39,120
He's rummaged through
all her drawers.
554
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,800
And he's a bit frustrated
because he can't find any money.
555
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,880
The ordeal this lady suffered was
only about half-an-hour in length,
556
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,840
managed to find 20 pounds or so
in coins and cash.
557
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:52,600
That was all that she lost.
558
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,760
Once he'd gone she locked the back
door again
559
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:58,720
to kind of make sure
he wasn't gonna come back,
560
00:31:58,800 --> 00:31:59,960
and went to sleep,
561
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,640
and it wasn't until
after she woke up at 9:00
562
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,680
that she used the landline
in the premises to raise the alarm.
563
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,400
When I arrived here, I saw
what there was of the Minstead team,
564
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:17,720
very busy, knocking on houses
doing door-to-door inquiries,
565
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,960
looking for CCTV,
looking for any kind of clues,
566
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,960
evidence they might find
in the locality,
567
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:27,280
just like they would do if it
were a murder investigation.
568
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,120
So, I suppose, although it was
the very first one I came out to,
569
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:34,520
really this was the sort of seeds
to my thinking
570
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,760
that this comprehensive investigation
of every single case
571
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:39,800
was just too resource intensive.
572
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,080
We were getting two,
sometimes three a night
573
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:45,720
when he was busy.
574
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:51,880
You just cannot keep doing this kind
of ultimate model of investigation
575
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,680
that you use for homicides.
576
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:57,760
I still think that may have been
counterproductive
577
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:01,600
to finding a strategy
that would actually take him down.
578
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:10,680
GOOD EVENING FROM THE SEVEN
579
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:14,120
Colin came in and,
by thinking outside the box,
580
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:15,600
by taking a fresh approach,
581
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:20,120
he decided that this was someone
that needed to be looked at
582
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:22,440
as a burglar
rather than a sex offender.
583
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:24,520
Up until then
584
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,440
we'd only been looking at offences
that involved a sexual assault
585
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:28,640
or very high Minstead indicator.
586
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,520
So what we decided to do was kind
of target every single burglary
587
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,360
overnight on elderly people
in South East London.
588
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,560
In that time period there
would've been many more offences
589
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:39,280
where there was no forensic link
590
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:43,000
which had been carried out
by the Night Stalker
591
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,320
and which where the police were
totally oblivious to and unaware of.
592
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,640
I'd got my intelligence team
to give me a print-out
593
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:54,160
of what could have been
Minstead offences,
594
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,720
and that was where you got to about
100 offences.
595
00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:59,160
We decided to just target
our resources
596
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,560
where we could get things
really quickly
597
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:03,920
and all aimed at
identifying the offender,
598
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,160
not proving that he committed
the offence.
599
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:11,280
All the evidence needed to put him
in prison for a very long time
600
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,200
had already been preserved.
601
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:17,840
We didn't need to prove that he
was committing these new offences.
602
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:21,760
We didn't need to get every
available scrap of evidence
603
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:23,400
from these new offences.
604
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,400
We could treat them
as intelligence opportunities.
605
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:29,880
In other words,
606
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,920
we can look at them to try and find
the features of the offence
607
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:35,680
which might help us identify him.
608
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,560
I had a view that, if we were to use
crime-pattern analysis
609
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,240
and sort of analytical minds to try
and predict what was happening
610
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,560
and to understand where this man
was offending,
611
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:50,400
then we needed to have
all the information possible.
612
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:53,200
This change
in the thrust of the investigation
613
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,760
gave birth to what was called
Minstead Lite.
614
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,920
I was desperate to prove that
Minstead was throwing away offences
615
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:03,560
and intelligence opportunities
616
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:08,680
by leaving crimes to be looked
at and investigated by the borough,
617
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:10,240
and I thought
I was gonna have to go through
618
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:12,320
years and years of crime reports
to prove this.
619
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:14,840
But such a case fell into my lap.
620
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:18,600
By May 2009, the investigative
strategy of Minstead Lite
621
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:22,360
was being written but hadn't
officially come into play.
622
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:24,760
During that time there was an
overnight burglary in Farnaby Road.
623
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:27,000
It was not an offence
624
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,640
that we would normally
have taken on an investigation,
625
00:35:29,720 --> 00:35:31,480
but we applied
the Minstead Lite principles
626
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:33,560
and went down there to use it
as a test case.
627
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,680
The house was occupied
by an elderly lady and her son,
628
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:40,160
who himself was in his 60s.
629
00:35:40,240 --> 00:35:43,200
So it was given back to the borough
to investigate.
630
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:49,280
He'd broken in, and he'd clearly
broken in in the normal sort of way -
631
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,120
at the rear with a pane of glass -
632
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:54,560
and moved things around inside
the house
633
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:56,320
but hadn't actually stolen anything.
634
00:35:56,400 --> 00:36:00,680
He wasn't there for very long
and decided for whatever reason
635
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,280
that he was gonna abort and leave,
and he did.
636
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,520
And when the borough CID
were investigating the crime,
637
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,400
the son of the victim told them
638
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,200
that there was a carton
of orange juice in the kitchen
639
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,080
which seemed to have lessened
in volume overnight,
640
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:16,560
as if somebody had drunk from it.
641
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:18,640
And he knew he hadn't,
his mother hadn't,
642
00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:22,400
and the scenes-of-crime officer from
the borough, doing the right thing,
643
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,760
swabbed the mouth of the carton,
submitted it for DNA analysis
644
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:27,920
and very quickly afterwards
645
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,400
was presented with
a full male DNA profile
646
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,720
which matched
the other Minstead crime scenes.
647
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:38,560
We hadn't had a DNA hit now for
about four years at that stage,
648
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,520
so it was significant that we knew
it was the Night Stalker
649
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,160
and what that meant was we could
draw on further resource.
650
00:36:45,240 --> 00:36:47,800
It also gave us
a very, very good break
651
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:50,720
in that we had some CCTV
from a nearby house,
652
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,600
and that was pretty much
one of the first occasions
653
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:55,360
in the length of the inquiry
654
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,520
where we were certain that it was
the actual Night Stalker.
655
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,480
We had the time that the intruder
left the house
656
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,600
because the son, the victim, told us.
657
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:09,880
We went to the CCTV and we saw
the bottom half of the Night Stalker
658
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:11,400
walking that way.
659
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,440
What we then did was look back on
the same CCTV,
660
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,760
because we thought,
"If he's walking that way,
661
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,600
he must have walked the other way
to get there,"
662
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,760
and he had, but what shocked us
was how long before.
663
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:23,320
It was like three hours before.
664
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,200
He'd obviously been at that scene
for a significant amount of time
665
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:28,720
and felt confident enough
666
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,880
to not only be in the vicinity
of the Farnaby Road address
667
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:33,200
for three hours,
668
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:36,280
but he'd obviously done
a burglary two or three doors down
669
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,920
and one round the corner
on the same evening -
670
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,640
very confident
that he wouldn't be caught.
671
00:37:41,720 --> 00:37:45,880
And since he'd only spent around
about half-an-hour at the most
672
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:47,520
in this house,
673
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:53,320
we know he spent in excess of 2.5
hours sitting in that back garden,
674
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,520
watching the house,
waiting for the lights to go out,
675
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,720
waiting for his time to strike
and to break in.
676
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,360
And you can just imagine, can't you?
He's sitting watching the windows,
677
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,640
and what he's waiting for
is for all those lights to go out,
678
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:08,840
you know, the downstairs ones
to go out maybe,
679
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:11,600
the top-floor ones come on
and then go out
680
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:13,120
and then makes his move.
681
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:15,680
Somehow that seemed
really quite sinister to us,
682
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:18,520
the thought of this man
sort of sitting unseen
683
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:22,520
in the dark in a garden,
watching people in their own home.
684
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:29,400
The investigation had to change...
had to change direction.
685
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:31,280
We had to change tactics.
686
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:33,280
We had to get one step ahead of him.
687
00:38:34,720 --> 00:38:37,160
The only way
we were going to catch him
688
00:38:37,240 --> 00:38:39,120
was if we were to catch him
in the act.
689
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,240
And that's why we had to become
a night-duty burglary squad
690
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:43,960
and get out at night-time.
691
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:46,360
Had the police carried on
the way they were,
692
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,520
before Colin arrived,
693
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:50,920
the Night Stalker would
never have been caught.
694
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:52,600
It's as simple as that.
695
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:57,200
We were dealing with an evil
human being, a ruthless individual.
696
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:00,880
Two things were certain -
the Night Stalker would strike again.
697
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:02,160
That couldn't continue.
698
00:39:02,240 --> 00:39:05,480
I had to do everything I could
to bring that to an end.
699
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,600
A large part of being a leader
of any team
700
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:20,960
is to make sure that those
on the team below you
701
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:23,880
are operating
to the best of their ability,
702
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:25,600
and often that would mean
703
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,000
making sure they're doing the things
they're good at
704
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,960
and you're giving the right tasks
to the right people.
705
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:34,360
The proposal to go to Minstead Lite
was surprisingly well received.
706
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:35,720
It depends on the situation
707
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:37,880
whether you're going to encounter
resistance or not.
708
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:43,280
You know, it's... If you're going in
raking over somebody else's work
709
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,640
and you tell them that you think
they're not doing it properly
710
00:39:45,720 --> 00:39:47,880
and they should be doing it
a different way,
711
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:49,360
then that's something
that's quite inflammatory.
712
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:50,880
Nobody likes to be in that position.
713
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,960
I think at this stage
in Operation Minstead,
714
00:39:54,040 --> 00:40:00,720
everybody was just accepting
of the fact that we weren't coping,
715
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:03,760
and if it carried on in the way
that it was going,
716
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:05,960
it was going to fall over.
717
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,160
I think in terms of the team,
718
00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:11,560
they saw it as a great
sort of release for them,
719
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,120
because they were struggling
under the burden
720
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:19,160
of trying to do this high-level,
complete investigation
721
00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:21,840
for every single one of these crimes
that was being reported.
722
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:25,160
Each morning when I went in...
723
00:40:27,240 --> 00:40:29,360
there was kind of two streams
of information
724
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,880
which might be able to tell me that
there'd been an incident overnight
725
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:34,520
which was worthy of our attention.
726
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,720
The intelligence team
on Operation Minstead
727
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:41,760
had a search which ran overnight
every night or early in the morning
728
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,280
to see reported crimes,
729
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,240
not just in London actually but
in the whole sort of home counties,
730
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,360
to see if there were any crimes
that fitted our criteria
731
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,000
so they could flag them up,
732
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:53,840
and then on top of that,
733
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:56,240
you had the great awareness
that there was
734
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,920
within the Metropolitan Police,
particularly in South East London,
735
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,480
as to the possibility
of Minstead cases.
736
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:07,880
There was an offence in June 2009
that chimed with the team.
737
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:09,440
It really struck a chord
with the team
738
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:11,800
about how vulnerable
these elderly people were.
739
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:17,680
There was a report of a burglary
on a 93-year-old lady.
740
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:20,400
It was in his favourite
hunting ground.
741
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:22,600
And given the age of the victim
742
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:26,520
and the interaction
between the victim and the burglar,
743
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:30,600
it was clearly going to be something
for Minstead to look at.
744
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:32,400
When I heard about this case,
745
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:35,640
I thought, well, if she's very frail
and she's that old,
746
00:41:35,720 --> 00:41:37,080
there were dangers here,
747
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:41,920
so I'm gonna go down and make sure
that we do everything we need to do
748
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:44,480
in case she takes
a turn for the worse.
749
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,760
So I went down to Shirley,
where she lived.
750
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:52,040
She lived in a large detached house
751
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,680
in prime sort of
stockbroker-belt country.
752
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:56,080
And there was an elderly lady there,
753
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:58,640
hadn't said anything to the initial
investigating officers
754
00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:02,000
from the borough or any of
our officers until Colin arrived.
755
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:07,320
This lady was gradually becoming
more and more infirm,
756
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:12,160
and she'd lost the sight in one eye
and her mobility was difficult.
757
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,160
I went in, and one of the family
liaison officers said to her,
758
00:42:16,240 --> 00:42:19,400
"Oh, this is Mr Sutton.
He's the boss, you see,"
759
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:21,320
so she said, "Oh, hello.
Hello, Mr Sutton."
760
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,040
So I said, "Oh, no,
you can call me Colin."
761
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:24,600
And I tried to sort of talk to her.
762
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:28,240
And she was - she had this lovely
sort of cut-glass accent almost.
763
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,680
She was, you know, very well-spoken
lady and...
764
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,760
even in the dire position
that she was
765
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:37,240
she sort of maintained a dignity.
766
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:44,240
When I said hello to her, she
extended her hand, and I took it,
767
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,840
and it wasn't to shake hands,
it was to hold hands.
768
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:49,080
While she was holding my hand,
769
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:51,320
she got her other hand
and put it on top,
770
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,960
so she was sort of hanging onto
my hand with both hands,
771
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:57,960
and she pulled me in towards her
772
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:01,800
and almost whispered to me,
"He interfered with me, you know."
773
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:07,080
And I realised in that second
774
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:10,640
the kind of courage that it had
taken her to make that disclosure.
775
00:43:10,720 --> 00:43:13,240
She hadn't told the officers
that were there before.
776
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,600
It was the first time we knew
she'd been indecently assaulted.
777
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,520
She seemed to form a bond with Colin
quite quickly,
778
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:24,160
and I know that she held his hand
779
00:43:24,240 --> 00:43:25,800
and she told him, the first person,
780
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,520
that she'd been sexually assaulted
by the offender.
781
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,000
And that really...
that seemed to affect Colin.
782
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:33,840
I just wanted to cry
when she said that to me.
783
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,160
I just felt so, so sorry for her,
784
00:43:36,240 --> 00:43:39,040
and I kind of remembered that she was
one of scores,
785
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:41,920
you know, 100 or more people
that had been through this.
786
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,760
It was the first time I had met
a live victim there and then
787
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:48,400
in her own home.
788
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:50,600
She only had, I think,
one living relative,
789
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:52,520
and she was a daughter
who lived in South Africa.
790
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:54,240
And she was unable to return
at that time,
791
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:58,200
and this lady from that day,
she essentially stopped eating.
792
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:00,200
She gave up on living, really,
793
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,320
and it was only a matter of weeks
and she was dead.
794
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:05,840
And I never saw her again.
795
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:07,960
Her daughter never saw her again.
796
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,320
And because of the difficulties
with the causation,
797
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,360
there was never going to be
any realistic prospect
798
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:21,160
of charging the Night Stalker
with her murder or manslaughter.
799
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:23,680
But you know he killed her.
800
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,920
He killed her just as surely
as if he'd stabbed her or shot her.
801
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:29,920
It just took a little bit longer.
802
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:41,360
You've got an offender here
803
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,120
who's breaking into homes
in the middle of the night,
804
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:46,920
waking up his victims
by shining a torch into their eyes,
805
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:49,480
sexually assaulting them.
806
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:51,480
It's not just terrifying
for the elderly,
807
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:53,800
it's also terrifying
for the families of the elderly
808
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:57,120
who'd be concerned
about their mothers.
809
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:01,000
There's was often a balance to be
struck in terms of publicity about it
810
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:06,400
because you've got the idea that
you're going to arouse public fear
811
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,480
and you're gonna make people fear
crime more than they ought to,
812
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,000
because the chances of it happening
to them are quite small
813
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,920
but they'll see it in the newspapers
and on TV
814
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:16,760
and think,
"I'm gonna become a victim."
815
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:18,640
And you have to balance that
816
00:45:18,720 --> 00:45:22,000
with the idea that you're going to
make people more aware
817
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:26,280
and that will make them
take better precautions.
818
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:29,400
And you've also got the fact
of what's the publicity going to do
819
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:30,600
in terms of the offender?
820
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:33,240
It could make him go underground.
It could make him stop.
821
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:34,600
And there was a pattern
which emerged
822
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:36,400
that he would go off the radar.
823
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:37,680
Perhaps he got nervous.
824
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,280
There was certainly a theory that
one of the Minstead appearances
825
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:45,720
on BBC Crimewatch made him
stop offending for a long while.
826
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,920
A 999 call tape was played,
827
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,840
and it kind of shamed him
into realising what he'd done.
828
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:05,080
The fact is that if people are
determined to break into a premises,
829
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,320
to a house, any premises,
830
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,440
then given enough time and equipment,
they probably can.
831
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:15,680
Most of the security
that you can equip your house with
832
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:17,280
is about delaying.
833
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:19,600
You know,
it's things that will take time,
834
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:24,120
and the hope is is that while
the person who's trying to break in
835
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:25,800
is spending a lot of time,
836
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:30,280
then they might be seen
and somebody will call the police
837
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,360
and they might be intercepted.
838
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:35,360
But it is very difficult
839
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,480
to make a house completely
impregnable to a burglar.
840
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,320
Certainly many of the houses
that the Night Stalker selected
841
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,160
for his victims
had had very little spent on them.
842
00:46:49,240 --> 00:46:50,680
One offence that I remember
quite well
843
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:54,960
is that there was an offence
on 6 June 2009 in Queenhill Road,
844
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:56,400
which is South Croydon,
845
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,080
just off Selsdon High Street.
846
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:01,640
There was a Saturday afternoon
in early June.
847
00:47:01,720 --> 00:47:03,840
It was the home of
an 82-year-old woman.
848
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,360
She was living alone
in a semidetached house.
849
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,400
She suffered quite badly
from dementia
850
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:12,120
and she was having real difficulties
851
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:14,320
in expressing to the officers
what had happened.
852
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:16,960
While we knew
there'd been an intruder,
853
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:18,600
the lady who lived here on her own,
854
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,160
she couldn't give us any more details
beyond that.
855
00:47:21,240 --> 00:47:22,840
So we didn't really know
if anything had been stolen.
856
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:25,880
We didn't if she'd been assaulted,
if there was any sexual assault.
857
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:29,600
It was very regular that he would
target people who had dementia -
858
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:31,520
I personally think deliberately,
859
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,040
but as you can imagine a lot of
elderly people do have dementia,
860
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:37,360
and it makes it extremely difficult
for the police
861
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:40,640
to get any information from them
to help identify the offender.
862
00:47:40,720 --> 00:47:44,120
At the time, there was an extension
being built on this house
863
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:45,800
in the next street.
864
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:47,640
It was like a building site there
effectively,
865
00:47:47,720 --> 00:47:50,440
and he was able to get through there
- it was insecure -
866
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:52,320
into the back garden of this house,
867
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:56,720
and it's from there that he removed
the pane of glass and broke in.
868
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:58,640
It was roughly on this spot here
869
00:47:58,720 --> 00:48:01,360
that Nathan Eason, my DI, and I
had a conversation.
870
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,800
We had officers all around this
street investigating this break-in,
871
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:06,840
and we didn't really know
what had happened
872
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:09,120
because the victim couldn't tell us.
They were weary.
873
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:12,320
They'd been responding to
two or three offences a night
874
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:13,920
for most of that week,
875
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:15,800
and we were just chasing shadows.
876
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:19,840
And almost simultaneously Nathan and
I said, "We can't keep doing this."
877
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:21,760
His offending
had increased massively.
878
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,760
We had a...you know, it's
a large area of South East London.
879
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:28,000
Two million people live
in that area,
880
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,520
but we knew the areas he favoured,
881
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,680
and I felt that, as did
everybody else on the team,
882
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:37,400
that if we had enough resources
883
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,160
we would be able to target the areas
that he liked to offend in the most.
884
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:44,000
I'd had these sort of half ideas
885
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:46,120
that really some sort
of proactive operation
886
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:48,560
was going to have to be the answer,
887
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:50,560
but I also knew
that I'd need a lot of support
888
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:52,080
both from those on the team below me
889
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,760
and indeed a lot of support
from those above me
890
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:56,880
if we were going to do it properly.
891
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:58,400
Everything that the operation
had been doing
892
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:00,600
for most of its 17 years
was focused on DNA.
893
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:05,520
And the major plank of what
they were trying to achieve
894
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:10,240
was to take swabs from as many people
on the list as possible,
895
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:12,080
until they took the swab
from the right man
896
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:13,120
and everything would be fine.
897
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:17,400
I took the view
that wasn't gonna happen,
898
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:20,120
so we had to do something else,
and that something else
899
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:26,000
didn't involve doing an investigation
of offences after they'd happened,
900
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:29,200
because quite frankly we'd been doing
that for years and it hadn't worked.
901
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:31,720
We needed something new.
We needed a different approach.
902
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:35,920
A different approach
had to be surveillance,
903
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:37,960
waiting for this prolific burglar
904
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,080
to come and commit an offence
in front of our eyes
905
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:42,600
and catch him in the act.
906
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:50,520
When I went across
to Lewisham Police Station
907
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,040
to begin my review
of Operation Minstead
908
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:56,320
and I really didn't know anybody
at all,
909
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:58,960
Nathan was the first police officer
I spoke to on Minstead.
910
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:03,040
He was supremely kind of supportive
of me
911
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:07,640
and gave me his backing to everything
I was trying to do, really,
912
00:50:07,720 --> 00:50:09,200
and I tried to repay that
913
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:11,240
by keeping the pressure from above
away from him
914
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:12,800
so that he could get on
and do his job
915
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:14,640
and manage the team
in the way that he did.
916
00:50:14,720 --> 00:50:18,000
By the kind of end of September,
beginning of October 2009,
917
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:20,680
we were planning a very large
proactive operation
918
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:22,520
in an attempt to catch
the Night Stalker,
919
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,240
where we discussed what...you know,
the resources that were required
920
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:28,520
and obviously we had to get
approval for the operational plan.
921
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,080
In the past I'd been involved
with a burglar,
922
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:33,080
when I was a PC at Tottenham.
923
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:36,280
A guy called Errol Dobson, he used
take people's louvre windows out.
924
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:38,000
And he wasn't sophisticated,
925
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:42,040
and we could just round up,
you know, a dozen, 20 people
926
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,200
and sit and wait for him to commit
the crime right in front of us.
927
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:46,720
The principle was the same,
928
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:48,680
what we were trying to do
with the Night Stalker,
929
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:51,960
but he was so much cleverer.
He was so much more cunning.
930
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:54,720
And he was doing it over such
a big area
931
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:58,640
that we needed to have our tactics
and our resources refined
932
00:50:58,720 --> 00:51:01,160
in the same way if we
were going to match him.
933
00:51:01,240 --> 00:51:04,720
I knew that if I was gonna do this
surveillance operation
934
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:08,560
the way I wanted, I needed some help
from all across the Met.
935
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:13,560
So what I did was I booked
a meeting room at Scotland Yard
936
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:17,040
to see some people
of equivalent rank to me.
937
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,320
I sent out an email to a dozen
or so of them to say,
938
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:22,480
"Can you come to a meeting
at Scotland Yard?"
939
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,600
When I get there, there was
probably twice that number of people,
940
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:27,360
and I think that
was really encouraging,
941
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:30,800
because, certainly my view
from the time I'd been there,
942
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,960
I'd sensed, actually Minstead
was a little bit of a backwater
943
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:37,600
that people got sort of shoved into
and nobody really cared about.
944
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:39,240
We went to the meeting.
945
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,320
Colin was able to persuade them that
the plan looked like a good one,
946
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:43,960
as we were essentially
pushing against an open door
947
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:47,280
in relation to the senior echelons
of the Metropolitan Police Service.
948
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:48,680
It was just a case of
949
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:51,440
did we have the right plan
with the resources that we wanted.
950
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:55,800
I presented it,
without a PowerPoint presentation
951
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:58,200
or handouts or graphs
or whatever.
952
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:01,080
I just kind of said,
"You know, this is happening now.
953
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,560
We're in the midst
954
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:09,520
of the most prolific spell of
Minstead Man's activity in 17 years.
955
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:15,320
I've had a 93-year-old tell me
that he interfered with her.
956
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,240
I've got an 88-year-old lady
who's going for a HIV test.
957
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:21,240
You know, we need to stop it."
958
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:23,680
What it took was guts,
959
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:25,920
because you are talking about
960
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:30,520
putting huge amounts of resources
onto the streets,
961
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:32,640
and the cost of that
would be astronomical.
962
00:52:32,720 --> 00:52:37,040
Part of the operational plan
was to have surveillance teams
963
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:41,360
and observation points in areas
where the Night Stalker was active.
964
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:45,760
The first step on the road
to the surveillance operation
965
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,680
really was to work out
where we were going to do it.
966
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:50,760
Colin wanted to draw up an area
967
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:56,080
which could feasibly be watched
by a dragnet operation.
968
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:59,120
Initially, when the intelligence
analyst started looking at this,
969
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:00,240
produced the very first map
970
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:01,320
and it was huge,
971
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:03,040
and so we had to refine it.
972
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:04,760
We went back to the drawing board
973
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:07,640
and we found another area
still in that Shirley cluster
974
00:53:07,720 --> 00:53:09,160
but in a smaller area.
975
00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:12,720
Even so, something like one
in every six Minstead offences
976
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:14,520
took place in the area,
977
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,280
and that was a smaller area
we were able to control
978
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,480
with, we thought,
around about 70 officers.
979
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:21,840
So that was the plan
which was hatched,
980
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:24,720
and that was the plan I took
to the force tasking group.
981
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,760
As a result of that meeting,
a call went out across the Met,
982
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:30,000
to all the murder teams,
983
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,640
asking for DCs to go over
and work on the case,
984
00:53:33,720 --> 00:53:37,840
and I volunteered to go, as it was
a case I wanted to get involved in.
985
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:40,120
It had the backing
of the commissioner -
986
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:41,160
Paul Stevenson at the time -
987
00:53:41,240 --> 00:53:44,960
and it had the backing of the senior
management team at the Met.
988
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:48,600
However, if it resulted in
no-one being found
989
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:52,240
and a huge bill for overtime
being submitted
990
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,600
then there was only one person
that was gonna get the blame,
991
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:57,360
and that would have been Colin.
992
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:11,440
When the proactive operation began,
28 October,
993
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:14,360
it was ran from a very large
control room up in Vauxhall,
994
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:16,760
it's called Central 3000.
995
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,080
It's an absolute sort of
state-of-the-art facility
996
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:24,160
that its primarily used
for very serious things
997
00:54:24,240 --> 00:54:26,280
like terrorist or kidnap incidents.
998
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:31,680
It's essentially a large room
with lots of sort of desk consoles
999
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:35,440
with computers and telephones
and radio channels on them
1000
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:40,640
and along one wall is a bank of...
I think it's 18 screens.
1001
00:54:40,720 --> 00:54:44,440
There was a surveillance control,
there was the operational control,
1002
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:46,040
which either myself or Colin
were running,
1003
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:48,400
and there were other officers
monitoring assets
1004
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:50,120
in the control room,
1005
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:52,560
so there's probably
about 16-20 people
1006
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:54,640
in the control room at any one time.
1007
00:54:54,720 --> 00:54:58,040
You had a very large number
of officers out on the streets,
1008
00:54:58,120 --> 00:54:59,760
and we had Minstead officers
1009
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:03,480
that were going to monitoring
addresses where we had alarms in.
1010
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:06,280
Everybody was static,
1011
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:10,920
tucked away in a place where anybody
walking or driving through the area
1012
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:13,800
would just have no chance
of seeing them.
1013
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,520
And to back that up, apart from we
had some air support, as well,
1014
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:21,240
but we had a mobile surveillance team
1015
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:26,360
that was situated outside the area
that we were surveilling.
1016
00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:32,040
The reason for that was that
if we stopped four people
1017
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:34,400
during the course
of the investigation
1018
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:36,960
who weren't the Night Stalker,
1019
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:39,640
that the word would get
on the sort of grapevine
1020
00:55:39,720 --> 00:55:41,760
that the police were doing
a big operation there,
1021
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:44,760
and it would effectively blow
the surveillance.
1022
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:46,480
It'd be no good anymore.
1023
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:51,040
The night shift would start with a
briefing at Lewisham Police Station,
1024
00:55:51,120 --> 00:55:54,040
and there'd be about 70 officers
including the surveillance teams.
1025
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:56,200
We'd be given an update
on the case...
1026
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,360
Either myself or Colin would brief
on what was expected of them,
1027
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:02,600
what their roles were, what to do
in the event of anything happening.
1028
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:07,560
I was allocated the role of
being in a mobile unit in a car,
1029
00:56:07,640 --> 00:56:10,960
and I was with two other officers,
in the area but out of sight,
1030
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:14,200
and to be in radio contact
with the rest of the team.
1031
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:17,120
And then they would be sent
to their operational areas
1032
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:19,800
with the right communication
and the right assets and resources.
1033
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:23,160
And then everybody goes down
to Shirley.
1034
00:56:23,240 --> 00:56:27,200
They're in their OPs by 11pm.
1035
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:30,840
I'm at Central 3000 with the inside
team there,
1036
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:32,760
waiting for this prolific burglar
1037
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:36,920
to come and commit an offence
in front of our eyes.
1038
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:09,120
And, you know, the time came
it started to get light
1039
00:57:09,200 --> 00:57:10,440
and we thought,
"Well, he's never gonna come."
1040
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:12,560
And nothing happens essentially.
1041
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:14,760
Very little moves all night.
1042
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:19,120
One or two vehicles pass by,
no pedestrians, and we all go home.
1043
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:28,880
First night of surveillance
passed through, we thought,
1044
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:31,160
without any incident.
Nothing happened.
1045
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:34,160
It wasn't until I got back
into Lewisham the next morning
1046
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:38,120
that I found out that overnight
there had been three burglaries
1047
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:40,920
which we thought were almost
certainly Night Stalker jobs.
1048
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:46,440
And those offences had happened
just outside the boundary
1049
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:48,080
of our surveillance operation.
1050
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:51,600
The first two were in this road here.
1051
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:56,560
The first of those was an attempt
where he failed for once
1052
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:58,920
to get the glass out
and didn't manage to get in,
1053
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:01,880
so he tried again at another house
just down the road.
1054
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:04,680
Now, the annoying thing about this
1055
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:09,280
is that this location here
is literally 100 yards north
1056
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:11,640
of where our surveillance area
started.
1057
00:58:11,720 --> 00:58:15,640
He was that close to us on the very
first night and we've missed it.
1058
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:19,000
But there was more to it than that,
1059
00:58:19,080 --> 00:58:25,200
because the third burglary took place
about a mile in that direction,
1060
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:27,720
just down
by the Royal Bethlem Hospital.
1061
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:31,000
The only way
that the Night Stalker could have got
1062
00:58:31,080 --> 00:58:34,280
from this burglary here
to the third one down there
1063
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:37,480
was right through the plot
where we were doing our surveillance.
1064
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:41,880
It was obvious a vehicle
must have been used.
1065
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:44,960
You couldn't walk from
the second to the third burglary.
1066
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:47,080
And when you looked at the map,
1067
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:50,920
the only logical way to drive
that journey
1068
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:53,080
would be straight down our plot.
1069
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:57,360
There was a school which had CCTV
on Orchard Way,
1070
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:02,200
and there were a couple of frames
that showed a vehicle going past
1071
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:04,520
at about the right time.
1072
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:06,160
And although it was
a very grainy shot
1073
00:59:06,240 --> 00:59:08,440
and it just showed
the top of the car,
1074
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:11,040
we were able to show that
to the experts
1075
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:15,040
and they were able to identify
it was a Vauxhall Zafira
1076
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:17,840
and what sort of model
and the colour.
1077
00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:19,480
They also found a man
1078
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:22,440
who used to work for the Metropolitan
Police, actually,
1079
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:24,000
and he lived on Orchard Way
1080
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:27,400
and he had his own CCTV
1081
00:59:27,480 --> 00:59:29,200
on his own cars on the drive.
1082
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:34,120
There was enough to show
a car parking up
1083
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:36,960
adjacent to where somebody
would have gone
1084
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:38,640
to commit the third burglary,
1085
00:59:38,720 --> 00:59:40,520
and even at one point
1086
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:44,440
his footage showed somebody
walking around the car.
1087
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:46,840
All of a sudden we knew
what sort of car,
1088
00:59:46,920 --> 00:59:50,640
what make and model and colour
was driven by the Night Stalker,
1089
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:52,440
and that appeared
a huge step forward,
1090
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:55,880
but I had to kind of temper
the optimism
1091
00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:58,440
because I'd been there before
in other cases,
1092
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:03,920
and just knowing a make, model
and colour of a car is a start,
1093
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:07,840
but it can mean a whole load of work
beyond that
1094
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:11,320
to try and find that one car
and to use it evidentially.
1095
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:14,120
And what I did know was that
if we were going to do that,
1096
01:00:14,200 --> 01:00:16,080
we wouldn't going to have time
to do the surveillance.
1097
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:17,320
It was a kind of either/or.
1098
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,080
The resources either had to be
on finding the car
1099
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:21,640
or doing the surveillance.
1100
01:00:21,720 --> 01:00:24,720
Having worked with Colin,
1101
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:26,320
I knew him and trusted him
1102
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:30,200
and had faith in what he was doing
1103
01:00:30,280 --> 01:00:33,240
and could understand the logic
behind his thought process
1104
01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:38,160
and wanted it to work
and believed it would work,
1105
01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:41,440
and, you know,
that kept the whole thing going.
1106
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:44,440
We're doing the surveillance.
That's our main choice.
1107
01:00:48,840 --> 01:00:52,360
After the investigation that took
place when I first joined the team
1108
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:57,240
was that the Night Stalker was
stealing victims' cashpoint cards
1109
01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,960
and then going to a nearby cashpoint
1110
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:02,800
and using the card
to withdraw money.
1111
01:01:02,880 --> 01:01:04,160
When he started in 1992,
1112
01:01:04,240 --> 01:01:07,160
almost all pensioners
got their state pension
1113
01:01:07,240 --> 01:01:10,080
with a book at the post office
in cash.
1114
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:12,600
But then obviously technology
came along,
1115
01:01:12,680 --> 01:01:15,360
and people had bank cards
to prevent cash being stolen.
1116
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:18,080
What he did was he started taking
their debit cards
1117
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:21,440
and most of them were so frightened
or terrorised by him
1118
01:01:21,520 --> 01:01:24,120
that they gave him the PIN numbers.
1119
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:25,960
After he'd committed his rapes
1120
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:28,840
he went to their bank
and withdrew money.
1121
01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:30,440
One of the areas we targeted
1122
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:32,320
for the main surveillance operation
in October
1123
01:01:32,400 --> 01:01:33,960
was a cashpoint in Honor Oak,
1124
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:35,760
which was attached to
an off-licence.
1125
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:37,240
The relevance of that
1126
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:41,920
was is that in 2007 the Night
Stalker had used that cashpoint
1127
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:45,480
with victims' credit cards
to get money out of their accounts.
1128
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:52,640
We were pretty certain it was him,
1129
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:54,480
but there was no detail,
they weren't able to assist us.
1130
01:01:56,320 --> 01:01:57,480
It was such a disappointment.
1131
01:01:57,560 --> 01:02:00,400
He'd obviously wanted to keep himself
just as secure
1132
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:02,360
from any cameras around the cashpoint
1133
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:05,600
as he did when he went in
to commit the offences.
1134
01:02:05,680 --> 01:02:10,240
As the 2009 proactive operation
began to gather pace,
1135
01:02:10,320 --> 01:02:14,560
we decided to get some
better-quality cameras fitted
1136
01:02:14,640 --> 01:02:17,080
in that area around that cashpoint
in Honor Oak.
1137
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:19,160
As a result of that,
1138
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:21,480
we got some really good images
of the Night Stalker
1139
01:02:21,560 --> 01:02:23,720
when he came from two addresses
1140
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:26,960
with the victim's credit card
and attempted to withdraw cash.
1141
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:29,600
Unfortunately,
we didn't see his face,
1142
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:33,640
but there's some excellent detail in
the clothing, his height and build,
1143
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:35,600
which gave us
really good intelligence.
1144
01:02:39,320 --> 01:02:41,640
A couple of nights after this,
1145
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:46,640
there is another attempt to use a
stolen debit card at a cash machine.
1146
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:50,320
The cash machine this time
was at a branch of the HSBC bank
1147
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:52,880
that was then on the corner
of West Fulham Road.
1148
01:02:52,960 --> 01:02:57,040
The local police had been round with
kind of public appeal posters
1149
01:02:57,120 --> 01:02:58,960
about Operation Minstead
1150
01:02:59,040 --> 01:03:01,640
with an EFIT on of Minstead Man,
1151
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,400
and the bank, being public spirited,
1152
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:07,520
had put one of these posters
in their window,
1153
01:03:07,600 --> 01:03:08,760
and the poster in the window
1154
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:11,680
was literally three feet away
from the cash machine.
1155
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:15,360
So, you've got Minstead Man
standing there,
1156
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:18,120
trying to steal money
from one of his victim's accounts,
1157
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:23,440
and just there by his head is an
E-Fit of him staring at himself.
1158
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:25,880
As it turned out previously,
1159
01:03:25,960 --> 01:03:29,040
he didn't need to worry because
he looked nothing like the EFIT.
1160
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:32,600
That's all I'm gonna say about that.
1161
01:03:41,840 --> 01:03:45,040
That first night was,
for all intents and purposes,
1162
01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:48,160
really quite quiet for all of us
involved in the investigation.
1163
01:03:48,240 --> 01:03:49,240
When we went in
1164
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:50,560
for the second night of surveillance,
1165
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:53,000
it occurred to us that the reason
1166
01:03:53,080 --> 01:03:57,080
we hadn't been aware of these
offences going on the night before
1167
01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:00,640
was that we weren't monitoring
the CAD messages live.
1168
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:01,840
CAD is shorthand for:
1169
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:05,680
Essentially it's just
electronic messages.
1170
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:07,520
They get passed
between police stations
1171
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:09,040
and police operational units
1172
01:04:09,120 --> 01:04:11,440
and from the centre,
which is New Scotland Yard.
1173
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:14,600
On the second night
of the main proactive operation,
1174
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:16,280
there was
an interesting development.
1175
01:04:16,360 --> 01:04:19,160
We picked up a CAD from Lambeth,
1176
01:04:19,240 --> 01:04:20,840
and what had taken place
1177
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:23,920
was that a woman had been in bed
1178
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:28,200
when she heard what she thought was
somebody going through her side gate.
1179
01:04:28,280 --> 01:04:31,080
She was certain somebody was
trying to break into her house.
1180
01:04:31,160 --> 01:04:34,400
She dialled 999,
the call was dealt with
1181
01:04:34,480 --> 01:04:36,760
with the kind of seriousness
and priority that it should had been.
1182
01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:40,720
Uniformed officers were dispatched
to the address.
1183
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:42,520
He came into the room,
saw her on the phone,
1184
01:04:42,600 --> 01:04:45,160
took it from her, threw it away
and ran.
1185
01:04:45,240 --> 01:04:47,520
And he ran down the road
as quickly as he could,
1186
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:50,440
and a police car came round
of the T junction
1187
01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:52,600
and they drove up towards it
1188
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:54,800
and he veered off and went down
the side of a house,
1189
01:04:54,880 --> 01:04:56,480
down sort of an alley,
1190
01:04:56,560 --> 01:04:58,800
where the car couldn't go,
so an officer got out of the car,
1191
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:01,880
a young officer, fit officer,
gave chase.
1192
01:05:01,960 --> 01:05:04,560
It was an incredible account.
He chased him for nearly two miles
1193
01:05:04,640 --> 01:05:09,040
through streets parks, rivers,
over walls and fences.
1194
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:13,760
And eventually over a wall
and into the carpark of a megastore,
1195
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:16,240
and when the officer
came over the wall,
1196
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:20,440
he couldn't see where this figure
he'd been chasing had gone,
1197
01:05:20,520 --> 01:05:22,880
and he'd got away.
1198
01:05:22,960 --> 01:05:25,040
But we were that close.
You know, he was that close.
1199
01:05:25,120 --> 01:05:27,880
We were ten seconds behind
Minstead Man at one point.
1200
01:05:27,960 --> 01:05:30,120
I remember one of my colleagues
telling...
1201
01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:31,240
you know,
it was incredulous...
1202
01:05:31,320 --> 01:05:32,800
He just couldn't believe
he'd got away.
1203
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:35,640
That by the time he'd got to top
of the wall, he had disappeared.
1204
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:37,200
But you could hear a pin drop
in there.
1205
01:05:37,280 --> 01:05:42,200
It was a very, very tense moment
for the people at the controls,
1206
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:46,880
thinking that any second
we might actually have him.
1207
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:49,440
He might actually be in
the custody with a police officer.
1208
01:05:49,520 --> 01:05:51,120
But of course it didn't happen.
1209
01:05:51,200 --> 01:05:55,280
From that we realised that the Night
Stalker must be a very fit man
1210
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:58,880
who is able to run quickly
and for quite a long time.
1211
01:05:58,960 --> 01:06:00,560
What could happen?
Well, he could just stop.
1212
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:02,840
He could just go to ground.
1213
01:06:02,920 --> 01:06:04,720
He could just give up.
1214
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:06,680
He could say to himself,
1215
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:10,560
"You've had a good run. You're going
to get caught if you keep going.
1216
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:12,800
You better stop now."
And he might not ever offend again.
1217
01:06:12,880 --> 01:06:14,240
Colin wanted to keep it out
of the press
1218
01:06:14,320 --> 01:06:18,440
because he didn't want to risk
the suspect going to ground
1219
01:06:18,520 --> 01:06:20,960
and then us losing the opportunity
to actually catch him.
1220
01:06:21,040 --> 01:06:23,800
I had a reasonable enough
relationship with Colin
1221
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:27,400
to ring him up, and he was at pains,
great pains, to say,
1222
01:06:27,480 --> 01:06:30,480
"Please desist from publishing
this story."
1223
01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:33,760
There was a possibility
that it could drive him undercover.
1224
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:37,160
Obviously we weren't to be aware
at that point
1225
01:06:37,240 --> 01:06:40,960
of the huge operation
that had been launched by the police
1226
01:06:41,040 --> 01:06:42,960
to try and find him.
1227
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:44,640
Immediately after the second night
1228
01:06:44,720 --> 01:06:47,000
when he was almost caught
in Southwark,
1229
01:06:47,080 --> 01:06:51,880
we then had a two-week period
where it was absolutely quiet.
1230
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:55,240
Silence. No indications that he
was out and about on the streets.
1231
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:57,240
No calls, no information whatsoever,
1232
01:06:57,320 --> 01:06:59,760
and we were concerned
that he'd gone to ground,
1233
01:06:59,840 --> 01:07:01,560
which obviously gave us
the indication it was him
1234
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:02,800
that was chased.
1235
01:07:02,880 --> 01:07:06,760
I was absolutely confident
that if we stayed there,
1236
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:08,120
eventually he'd come back
1237
01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:09,960
and he'd commit a crime
in front of us.
1238
01:07:10,040 --> 01:07:11,800
I just couldn't put a time limit
on that.
1239
01:07:13,880 --> 01:07:15,560
I was gonna keep my nerve.
1240
01:07:15,640 --> 01:07:17,240
The team were ready
to keep their nerve.
1241
01:07:17,320 --> 01:07:19,440
It was a question to me
as to whether those above me
1242
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:21,160
would sanction it to keep going.
1243
01:07:21,240 --> 01:07:24,120
I was encouraged by
the senior management of the MPS,
1244
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:26,960
who essentially held their nerve
and stayed with it,
1245
01:07:27,040 --> 01:07:28,160
but we were very concerned
1246
01:07:28,240 --> 01:07:30,040
that he could seriously injure
or kill somebody,
1247
01:07:30,120 --> 01:07:31,600
so obviously that was one
of the factors
1248
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:32,800
they had to take into account.
1249
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:34,360
And so we kept going
and we kept going
1250
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:37,960
and we kept going and kept going.
And we'd now done 16 nights,
1251
01:07:38,040 --> 01:07:42,280
and from a personal point of view,
it was absolutely fatiguing.
1252
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:46,080
In the two-week period afterwards,
I wasn't available.
1253
01:07:46,160 --> 01:07:47,440
I was on a course at Hendon,
1254
01:07:47,520 --> 01:07:51,680
and so Colin was running the
operational side up in Central 3000,
1255
01:07:51,760 --> 01:07:53,200
so he was on his own.
1256
01:07:53,280 --> 01:07:56,200
So for two weeks he couldn't
help me out with the control room
1257
01:07:56,280 --> 01:07:58,200
or at Lewisham during the day,
1258
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:01,480
so I'm doing the briefing at 9:00,
9:30 at Lewisham,
1259
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:04,520
going in and doing
effectively a night duty
1260
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:07,080
until half 5:30, 6:00 in the morning,
1261
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:09,880
going home for a few hours sleep,
1262
01:08:09,960 --> 01:08:12,720
back into Lewisham again for 9:00
for the briefing.
1263
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:14,760
The surveillance went on
for a couple of weeks,
1264
01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:16,880
but despite the time
that it was taking,
1265
01:08:16,960 --> 01:08:18,960
I still had faith in Colin
1266
01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:22,080
and that the operation
was going to be successful.
1267
01:08:22,160 --> 01:08:26,800
Surveillance work can be sometimes
quite boring, really,
1268
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:29,640
because for most of the time
nothing happens,
1269
01:08:29,720 --> 01:08:32,840
but you can't afford to take
the chance of falling asleep.
1270
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:34,840
You've got to be alert and awake.
1271
01:08:34,920 --> 01:08:37,760
We really, really wanted
to get hands on this guy,
1272
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:40,920
and we were all behind Colin
1273
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:45,840
and supporting...his plans, really,
to keep it going.
1274
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:56,440
I finished my course
on Friday 13 November.
1275
01:08:56,520 --> 01:08:58,440
I realised he was
probably exhausted,
1276
01:08:58,520 --> 01:09:01,280
so I offered to do the weekend
and potentially the week after that,
1277
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:04,320
so I was up there on Friday the 13th
of the evening.
1278
01:09:04,400 --> 01:09:06,760
I said, "Well, you know,
I'm sorted out tonight,
1279
01:09:06,840 --> 01:09:09,560
but come in on Saturday.
Do Saturday and Sunday,
1280
01:09:09,640 --> 01:09:12,240
and I can have two days off.
That would be fantastic."
1281
01:09:12,320 --> 01:09:13,920
That Saturday night I...
1282
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:19,080
I stayed at home for the first night
for, you know, nearly three weeks
1283
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:23,280
and watched the football, had a glass
of wine or whiskey or something,
1284
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:25,720
and it was sort of relaxing time
and me to catch up on my sleep.
1285
01:09:30,440 --> 01:09:34,440
We started at the normal time
on 14 November, about 11pm,
1286
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:37,360
and it was a pretty quiet
evening from my memory.
1287
01:09:37,440 --> 01:09:39,800
Nothing particularly exciting
happening at any the cashpoints
1288
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:41,160
and in any of the areas.
1289
01:09:41,240 --> 01:09:45,520
And then in the early hours
we got a call over the radio
1290
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:47,960
from one of the officers
in one of the observation points.
1291
01:09:48,040 --> 01:09:52,640
The Vauxhall Zafira was seen nearby
old people's type housing,
1292
01:09:52,720 --> 01:09:54,000
from one of the observation points,
1293
01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:56,280
and that had been put up
to the whole team.
1294
01:09:56,360 --> 01:09:59,080
Soon after that, a man fitting
the description of the Night Stalker
1295
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:01,840
was seen running
from one of these houses.
1296
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:04,280
The suspect running towards
a Vauxhall Zafira
1297
01:10:04,360 --> 01:10:06,000
was exceptionally important to us,
1298
01:10:06,080 --> 01:10:08,680
because we'd identified prior
to that night
1299
01:10:08,760 --> 01:10:11,040
that the Night Stalker
was using a type B Vauxhall Zafira.
1300
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,240
So as far as we was concerned,
game on.
1301
01:10:13,320 --> 01:10:17,640
And he got in the Zafira,
the lights came on and he drove off.
1302
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:22,800
And he drives off up Orchard Way,
1303
01:10:22,880 --> 01:10:26,400
where there are lots
of static observation posts.
1304
01:10:26,480 --> 01:10:30,440
Now, the plan was not to stop anybody
or to arrest anybody
1305
01:10:30,520 --> 01:10:32,120
here on the plot,
1306
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:35,200
because if it was the wrong man,
1307
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:40,400
we'd probably have the details of
our surveillance operation leak out.
1308
01:10:40,480 --> 01:10:42,720
An officer or two from the OP
went to the actual address
1309
01:10:42,800 --> 01:10:44,640
where he was seen coming from,
1310
01:10:44,720 --> 01:10:47,280
and the information I received
back in the control room
1311
01:10:47,360 --> 01:10:50,400
was it looks like that address
had been attempted to be forced.
1312
01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:52,840
You know, in my mind I'm thinking,
1313
01:10:52,920 --> 01:10:55,480
"Well, he's not a resident
of this address,
1314
01:10:55,560 --> 01:10:59,400
so it's likely to be a burglar,
hence the Night Stalker."
1315
01:10:59,480 --> 01:11:02,640
The Night Stalker was driving
quite quickly for some of this.
1316
01:11:02,720 --> 01:11:04,960
He got up to nearly 60mph in parts.
1317
01:11:05,040 --> 01:11:06,800
I'm convinced,
and so are the rest of the team
1318
01:11:06,880 --> 01:11:08,480
that he knew he was being followed
1319
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:11,880
and that he essentially tried
to get away by speeding.
1320
01:11:11,960 --> 01:11:13,840
What the surveillance team
were able to do
1321
01:11:13,920 --> 01:11:16,720
was somebody using his local
knowledge took a side turning
1322
01:11:16,800 --> 01:11:20,240
and went on ahead of him
to slow him down,
1323
01:11:20,320 --> 01:11:25,760
which enabled the following
surveillance team to catch up.
1324
01:11:25,840 --> 01:11:30,000
By now we have a convoy
of about four police vehicles,
1325
01:11:30,080 --> 01:11:35,040
and one of those vehicles is equipped
with covert, blue lights and sirens.
1326
01:11:35,120 --> 01:11:37,680
He couldn't know
that when we stopped him
1327
01:11:37,760 --> 01:11:41,320
it was because we'd followed him
all the way from Shirley.
1328
01:11:41,400 --> 01:11:45,200
We just wanted him to think
it was a random stop in the street,
1329
01:11:45,280 --> 01:11:47,040
so that if it was the wrong man,
1330
01:11:47,120 --> 01:11:50,040
then we wouldn't jeopardise
the surveillance operation.
1331
01:11:50,120 --> 01:11:54,800
You can see we're on a reasonably
wide and busy sort of main road,
1332
01:11:54,880 --> 01:11:57,480
and that's fine,
because we can keep control,
1333
01:11:57,560 --> 01:12:01,240
but then the Zafira indicates
and turns left
1334
01:12:01,320 --> 01:12:03,880
onto a very different road.
1335
01:12:03,960 --> 01:12:06,280
The character of the buildings
changed.
1336
01:12:06,360 --> 01:12:09,200
Suddenly we're into
a residential street.
1337
01:12:09,280 --> 01:12:12,080
It's very much the sort of place
1338
01:12:12,160 --> 01:12:15,360
where the Night Stalker
would make his attacks.
1339
01:12:15,440 --> 01:12:18,000
So, a decision was
made to stop him there and then,
1340
01:12:18,080 --> 01:12:20,680
so he couldn't get away, get out
the vehicle and do a runner.
1341
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:23,760
It became an easy decision
for Nathan to say, "Strike now."
1342
01:12:28,800 --> 01:12:30,560
It was utter confusion
when he gets stopped.
1343
01:12:30,640 --> 01:12:33,240
I phoned one
of the Operation Minstead sergeants
1344
01:12:33,320 --> 01:12:36,040
and I asked him to find out
what was going on.
1345
01:12:36,120 --> 01:12:38,320
Had he been spoken to?
Who was this man?
1346
01:12:38,400 --> 01:12:39,760
Get some information off of him,
1347
01:12:39,840 --> 01:12:42,080
so that we didn't make
an unnecessary arrest.
1348
01:12:42,160 --> 01:12:44,080
The officer asked him
a few questions
1349
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:45,440
that led him to believe
1350
01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:50,120
that we had a person who was very
likely to be our Night Stalker.
1351
01:12:50,200 --> 01:12:51,920
And the officer asked him his name
1352
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:54,800
and he said his name
was Kelvin Grant.
1353
01:12:54,880 --> 01:12:58,440
The officer said, "OK, have you got
any ID on you?" And he said, "No."
1354
01:12:58,520 --> 01:13:01,240
And they started to have a look,
and he saw in that...
1355
01:13:01,320 --> 01:13:05,000
could see in the centre console
of the car there was some cards,
1356
01:13:05,080 --> 01:13:06,640
and he saw the name on there was:
1357
01:13:09,040 --> 01:13:12,880
Some of the clothing from,
I think it was in August 2009,
1358
01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:15,440
that he wore when he approached
the cashpoint with his hood up
1359
01:13:15,520 --> 01:13:18,880
and gloves on etc,
that clothing was found in his car -
1360
01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:21,080
direct link from images we had
1361
01:13:21,160 --> 01:13:23,240
from the cashpoint to his arrest.
1362
01:13:23,320 --> 01:13:26,960
When they looked in the glove
compartment of the car,
1363
01:13:27,040 --> 01:13:29,240
there was a balaclava-ry,
woollen sort of hat
1364
01:13:29,320 --> 01:13:31,240
which fitted with the description
1365
01:13:31,320 --> 01:13:35,640
given by so many of the Minstead
victims after their crimes.
1366
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:38,120
When they looked in the boot,
there was even more sort of evidence,
1367
01:13:38,200 --> 01:13:43,360
because there was a grey fleecy top,
1368
01:13:43,440 --> 01:13:47,480
can of petrol, pair of shoes,
a crowbar and a big screwdriver.
1369
01:13:47,560 --> 01:13:50,400
The Night Stalker
was finally stopped
1370
01:13:50,480 --> 01:13:52,280
and the handcuffs were put on him
1371
01:13:52,360 --> 01:13:55,920
and we were able to identify him
as Delroy Grant.
1372
01:13:57,800 --> 01:14:01,040
Delroy Grant was arrested.
1373
01:14:08,400 --> 01:14:11,200
About 1:30 my mobile rang
and it was Nathan.
1374
01:14:12,280 --> 01:14:14,400
And he uttered the immortal words,
1375
01:14:14,480 --> 01:14:16,920
"Hello, Colin.
I think we've got him,"
1376
01:14:18,760 --> 01:14:20,760
to which I replied,
"Are you joking?"
1377
01:14:20,840 --> 01:14:23,200
And he said, "Would I really ring
you up at 1:30 in the morning
1378
01:14:23,280 --> 01:14:24,640
and joke about something like that?"
1379
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:27,600
As far as I was concerned,
the description, the method,
1380
01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:29,080
the vehicle he was using,
1381
01:14:29,160 --> 01:14:31,840
some various items that were seen
through the vehicle window
1382
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:34,000
prior to it being removed,
1383
01:14:34,080 --> 01:14:36,640
we were pretty certain
that he was our man,
1384
01:14:36,720 --> 01:14:39,160
so we were happy, very happy.
1385
01:14:39,240 --> 01:14:42,200
No, I didn't feel any guilt
that I'd been in the control room
1386
01:14:42,280 --> 01:14:44,440
when the Night Stalker had been
arrested and Colin wasn't -
1387
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:45,600
I felt none at all,
1388
01:14:45,680 --> 01:14:47,640
and it was the butt of many jokes,
as you can imagine,
1389
01:14:47,720 --> 01:14:49,360
for weeks and weeks afterwards
1390
01:14:49,440 --> 01:14:50,640
that I'd been on a course,
1391
01:14:50,720 --> 01:14:52,360
stepped in
and that night he'd been arrested.
1392
01:14:52,440 --> 01:14:54,680
The simple fact was there was
no way I was going back to sleep,
1393
01:14:54,760 --> 01:14:56,680
because I was just too sort
of excited and wound up
1394
01:14:56,760 --> 01:14:59,000
by hearing the story of his arrest,
1395
01:14:59,080 --> 01:15:01,480
so I drove into Lewisham
and went into the charge room,
1396
01:15:01,560 --> 01:15:05,200
and that's when I was introduced to
Delroy Grant for the first time,
1397
01:15:05,280 --> 01:15:08,240
and I finally got my eyes
on Minstead Man.
1398
01:15:08,320 --> 01:15:11,080
One of the officers sort of said,
"This is Mr Sutton. He's the boss,"
1399
01:15:11,160 --> 01:15:12,320
and...
1400
01:15:12,400 --> 01:15:14,640
Delroy Grant shook his...
shook my hand.
1401
01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:16,880
He extended his hand, shook hands,
bowed his head.
1402
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:19,520
A bit of a surprise
that he was so polite
1403
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:20,960
and so sort of deferential.
1404
01:15:21,040 --> 01:15:22,480
I've never had somebody
1405
01:15:22,560 --> 01:15:25,480
who was so willing to strike up
an irrelevant conversation
1406
01:15:25,560 --> 01:15:28,160
and to kind of prolong it
as he was.
1407
01:15:28,240 --> 01:15:31,400
It was a window to me
1408
01:15:31,480 --> 01:15:35,880
to the kind of Delroy Grant that
people were going to tell us about
1409
01:15:35,960 --> 01:15:37,760
over the coming weeks.
1410
01:15:37,840 --> 01:15:40,440
What struck me was how fit he was
for a man of his age,
1411
01:15:40,520 --> 01:15:42,480
and then all the scenes
I'd been to...
1412
01:15:42,560 --> 01:15:44,560
some of the windows
that he'd managed to enter,
1413
01:15:44,640 --> 01:15:46,440
and I remember standing there
with Colin saying,
1414
01:15:46,520 --> 01:15:48,160
"How did somebody
get into that window?"
1415
01:15:48,240 --> 01:15:50,280
And it all started to come together
1416
01:15:50,360 --> 01:15:52,960
of how wiry, muscular
and how flexible he was,
1417
01:15:53,040 --> 01:15:55,080
and that just gave me
even more reason
1418
01:15:55,160 --> 01:15:57,200
to believe that we'd got
the right person.
1419
01:16:00,200 --> 01:16:03,320
They booked him in and they took his
clothing from him and bagged it,
1420
01:16:03,400 --> 01:16:04,440
in case it was evidential,
1421
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:06,480
and there's a very obscure provision
1422
01:16:06,560 --> 01:16:08,840
in
the Police and Criminal Evidence Act
1423
01:16:08,920 --> 01:16:11,200
whereby interviews can be conducted
with people
1424
01:16:11,280 --> 01:16:13,360
if there is a life at risk
1425
01:16:13,440 --> 01:16:14,880
without solicitors and rights.
1426
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:18,200
And the officers said to him,
"Look, have you been anywhere?
1427
01:16:18,280 --> 01:16:21,040
Is there an old lady lying somewhere
with injuries
1428
01:16:21,120 --> 01:16:23,880
who needs medical assistance
because you've been there tonight?"
1429
01:16:23,960 --> 01:16:26,040
He was quite sort of chilling
in his reply when he said,
1430
01:16:26,120 --> 01:16:29,720
"I've not visited anybody tonight."
1431
01:16:31,120 --> 01:16:34,400
That was his reply,
"I've not visited anybody tonight."
1432
01:16:34,480 --> 01:16:37,040
When he was asked to give
his fingerprints,
1433
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:40,440
he made an off-the-record comment,
if you like,
1434
01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:43,080
to the officers doing it, saying,
"It's pointless you doing this.
1435
01:16:43,160 --> 01:16:45,120
You know that I always wore gloves."
1436
01:16:45,200 --> 01:16:47,240
A sample had been taken
when he'd been arrested,
1437
01:16:47,320 --> 01:16:49,000
which is pretty standard.
1438
01:16:49,080 --> 01:16:52,040
That was then couriered
by officers by hand
1439
01:16:52,120 --> 01:16:53,560
to the Forensic Science Service.
1440
01:16:53,640 --> 01:16:57,440
The opened up their lab,
and by 4pm that afternoon
1441
01:16:57,520 --> 01:17:01,840
it was confirmed that we...it was
him, and he was the Night Stalker.
1442
01:17:01,920 --> 01:17:04,040
Delroy Grant was 53 years old.
1443
01:17:04,120 --> 01:17:07,320
He lived in Brockley Mews
in South East London
1444
01:17:07,400 --> 01:17:09,160
with his second wife,
1445
01:17:09,240 --> 01:17:13,600
who suffered from degenerative
and progressive multiple sclerosis.
1446
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:19,240
After Grant was charged, I became
the family liaison officer,
1447
01:17:19,320 --> 01:17:21,920
which is an unusual thing to happen,
1448
01:17:22,000 --> 01:17:26,160
but in this case the family
really were victims of his, as well,
1449
01:17:26,240 --> 01:17:29,120
because they were innocent people
1450
01:17:29,200 --> 01:17:32,480
who all of a sudden
had their world turned upside-down
1451
01:17:32,560 --> 01:17:34,160
by what had happened.
1452
01:17:34,240 --> 01:17:36,760
It was obvious the police
were searching the house
1453
01:17:36,840 --> 01:17:38,240
and it didn't take long
1454
01:17:38,320 --> 01:17:40,880
for the local community to realise
who had been arrested
1455
01:17:40,960 --> 01:17:44,080
and where he lived,
so their lives were...
1456
01:17:46,040 --> 01:17:48,080
made incredibly difficult
by what had happened.
1457
01:17:48,160 --> 01:17:51,560
Despite the DNA hit, they still
couldn't believe that their father
1458
01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:53,440
was the Night Stalker.
1459
01:17:54,840 --> 01:17:56,440
He was a good father.
1460
01:17:56,520 --> 01:17:58,360
He enjoyed cricket.
1461
01:17:58,440 --> 01:18:01,160
People spoke of him well.
1462
01:18:01,240 --> 01:18:04,480
No-one really had anything bad
to say on him.
1463
01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:06,120
He's such a nice guy
1464
01:18:06,200 --> 01:18:08,720
but I just can't...
The shock... It's unbelievable.
1465
01:18:08,800 --> 01:18:11,720
You know, totally devoted
to his wife and children,
1466
01:18:11,800 --> 01:18:13,760
and as I said,
it's just come to a shock
1467
01:18:13,840 --> 01:18:16,680
in this small, tight-knit community.
1468
01:18:16,760 --> 01:18:21,280
He was registered as someone that
was a carer for his wife, Jennifer.
1469
01:18:22,840 --> 01:18:26,360
Of course, the only footnote
perhaps to add to it
1470
01:18:26,440 --> 01:18:27,880
is that the car he was driving,
1471
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:30,600
the car he was allotted
on the Motability Scheme
1472
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:33,000
for driving Jennifer around,
1473
01:18:33,080 --> 01:18:37,120
was also the car he was driving out
to the scenes of his attacks.
1474
01:18:37,200 --> 01:18:40,720
So it really was like he was
living this kind of double life,
1475
01:18:40,800 --> 01:18:44,720
and in the early days of his
incarceration at the police station,
1476
01:18:44,800 --> 01:18:47,840
there was an officer taking him
some food into his cell.
1477
01:18:47,920 --> 01:18:51,000
He said to her, "I've got a thing
about this DNA, really."
1478
01:18:51,080 --> 01:18:52,600
He said, "You need
to be really careful.
1479
01:18:52,680 --> 01:18:54,160
I don't want to drop anyone in it,
1480
01:18:54,240 --> 01:18:58,320
but you do want to check
my son's DNA,
1481
01:18:58,400 --> 01:19:00,720
'cause I understand
it could be quite close to mine,
1482
01:19:00,800 --> 01:19:05,280
and I think it's quite likely
that he's committed these offences,
1483
01:19:05,360 --> 01:19:07,400
not me, so you need to have a look
at my son,"
1484
01:19:07,480 --> 01:19:11,800
at that point trying to throw
the suspicion off himself,
1485
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:13,320
which is breath taking, really.
1486
01:19:15,560 --> 01:19:18,520
The question that everybody wanted
answered after he was arrested
1487
01:19:18,600 --> 01:19:20,520
was was he in the system?
1488
01:19:20,600 --> 01:19:21,920
And what they meant by that was
1489
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:23,480
did we have a file on our database
1490
01:19:23,560 --> 01:19:25,280
relating to Delroy Grant?
1491
01:19:27,480 --> 01:19:30,400
And the answer to that is yes.
1492
01:19:30,480 --> 01:19:34,720
At the start of his spree
in the summer of 1999,
1493
01:19:34,800 --> 01:19:38,520
he committed a burglary in Bromley.
1494
01:19:38,600 --> 01:19:42,520
The local Neighbourhood Watch
coordinator had seen a BMW car
1495
01:19:42,600 --> 01:19:45,800
acting suspiciously
at the time of a burglary
1496
01:19:45,880 --> 01:19:49,600
and he'd taken the number
of that BMW.
1497
01:19:49,680 --> 01:19:54,400
He saw a man get out of the car,
put a balaclava on,
1498
01:19:54,480 --> 01:19:57,680
put a set of gloves on and go
towards his neighbour's address.
1499
01:19:57,760 --> 01:20:01,280
What happened - that was
investigated by Bromley Borough.
1500
01:20:01,360 --> 01:20:02,920
Bromley Borough officer
1501
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:05,200
did some cursory police national
computer checks
1502
01:20:05,280 --> 01:20:06,800
and found two Delroy Grants
1503
01:20:06,880 --> 01:20:09,680
that she thought were likely to be
the suspect.
1504
01:20:09,760 --> 01:20:13,320
One had an address in Leicester,
one had an address in Dulwich.
1505
01:20:13,400 --> 01:20:15,840
Not unreasonably,
she assumed that the Dulwich one
1506
01:20:15,920 --> 01:20:18,320
would be the one she was looking for,
1507
01:20:18,400 --> 01:20:19,960
because it was South East London.
1508
01:20:20,040 --> 01:20:24,520
That man, that Delroy Grant,
was the wrong one.
1509
01:20:24,600 --> 01:20:27,400
The one that lived at Brockley Mews
had formerly lived in Leicester.
1510
01:20:27,480 --> 01:20:29,280
That was our Delroy Grant,
the one we arrested,
1511
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:31,080
the one that was in the cells.
1512
01:20:31,160 --> 01:20:33,960
Where it was crucial
to Operation Minstead
1513
01:20:34,040 --> 01:20:38,120
was that the wrong Delroy Grant
had had his DNA taken
1514
01:20:38,200 --> 01:20:41,600
when arrested for other offences,
and was on the database.
1515
01:20:41,680 --> 01:20:46,160
So when they asked for the DNA
from the Minstead crime scene
1516
01:20:46,240 --> 01:20:49,280
to be compared to Delroy Grant's DNA,
1517
01:20:49,360 --> 01:20:53,680
they compare it to the wrong one,
the wrong DNA - there's no match.
1518
01:20:55,080 --> 01:20:56,920
And from that point onwards,
1519
01:20:57,000 --> 01:21:00,640
Delroy Grant of Brockley Mews
is on the Minstead computer
1520
01:21:00,720 --> 01:21:03,680
as eliminated by DNA.
1521
01:21:03,760 --> 01:21:09,840
What's also just a salutary lesson to
how these things should be checked,
1522
01:21:09,920 --> 01:21:14,560
in 2001 somebody did phone
the incident room and say,
1523
01:21:14,640 --> 01:21:16,840
"I've seen all your publicity
about Minstead
1524
01:21:16,920 --> 01:21:20,760
and I think Delroy Grant
of Brockley Mews could be your man.
1525
01:21:20,840 --> 01:21:22,480
I think he might have done it."
1526
01:21:22,560 --> 01:21:26,320
The first thing they do is they go to
the database - 'eliminated by DNA'.
1527
01:21:27,640 --> 01:21:30,920
Even if they had swabbed
all the 20,000 people on their list,
1528
01:21:31,000 --> 01:21:32,800
he wasn't one of them.
1529
01:21:32,880 --> 01:21:39,760
So that mistake, that assumption and
lack of checking by that one officer
1530
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:42,560
poisoned it forevermore,
1531
01:21:42,640 --> 01:21:46,440
and Delroy Grant
had another ten years of liberty
1532
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:50,680
and dozens more old people
were victimised while he was free.
1533
01:22:03,440 --> 01:22:05,640
He pleaded not guilty
1534
01:22:05,720 --> 01:22:11,920
and ran what can only be described
as the most incredible defence
1535
01:22:12,000 --> 01:22:14,160
I think I've ever heard.
1536
01:22:14,240 --> 01:22:18,800
Essentially he said
that his first wife in 1979,
1537
01:22:18,880 --> 01:22:24,080
when they were splitting up, had
saved semen from when they'd had sex,
1538
01:22:24,160 --> 01:22:26,800
when she had employed a third person
1539
01:22:26,880 --> 01:22:30,360
to deposit it around
the crime scenes.
1540
01:22:30,440 --> 01:22:33,800
It was just a fantasy defence
of the very first order.
1541
01:22:33,880 --> 01:22:36,040
It was just completely incredible.
1542
01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:38,720
Thanks to Tim and Kaye.
We'll just break in.
1543
01:22:38,800 --> 01:22:41,440
We've got some news coming in
from Woolwich Crown Court.
1544
01:22:41,520 --> 01:22:43,480
This is where the trial
of Delroy Grant,
1545
01:22:43,560 --> 01:22:47,280
accused of being the notorious
Night Stalker, is taking place.
1546
01:22:47,360 --> 01:22:50,880
Delroy Grant, the man accused
of being the Night Stalker,
1547
01:22:50,960 --> 01:22:54,240
has been found guilty of 29 counts
1548
01:22:54,320 --> 01:23:00,040
of preying on 18 elderly men
and women between 1992 and 2009.
1549
01:23:00,120 --> 01:23:03,560
They said that he was responsible
for some of the most awful
1550
01:23:03,640 --> 01:23:05,720
and disturbing crimes
in the history of Scotland Yard.
1551
01:23:05,800 --> 01:23:07,520
So that's a line just coming in
to us there,
1552
01:23:07,600 --> 01:23:11,840
that the police are apologising for
missed chances to stop Delroy Grant.
1553
01:23:11,920 --> 01:23:13,160
The judge said
1554
01:23:13,240 --> 01:23:16,680
that he would have to serve 27 years
1555
01:23:16,760 --> 01:23:21,720
before he was eligible to apply
for parole from his life sentence.
1556
01:23:21,800 --> 01:23:26,160
And that means that the absolute
youngest that Delroy Grant could be
1557
01:23:26,240 --> 01:23:30,200
before he's released back into
the world would be 81 years old.
1558
01:23:30,280 --> 01:23:32,560
And were that to happen,
1559
01:23:32,640 --> 01:23:36,400
I guess we have to think
that he would be...
1560
01:23:36,480 --> 01:23:38,920
you know, he'll be posing
little threat by that time.
1561
01:23:39,960 --> 01:23:44,600
The number of offences that we had
by the time that I left
1562
01:23:44,680 --> 01:23:48,040
are that he was involved in 204,
1563
01:23:48,120 --> 01:23:50,200
many of which included
indecent assaults
1564
01:23:50,280 --> 01:23:52,960
and five of which included rapes.
1565
01:23:53,040 --> 01:23:55,480
He was a sexual predator
1566
01:23:55,560 --> 01:23:57,480
who just committed
1567
01:23:57,560 --> 01:23:59,480
the most barbaric crimes
1568
01:23:59,560 --> 01:24:00,720
with meticulous planning,
1569
01:24:00,800 --> 01:24:03,760
some of which
we probably don't know about.
1570
01:24:03,840 --> 01:24:08,720
It may well be that a lot of
his victims suffered at his hands
1571
01:24:08,800 --> 01:24:11,120
but suffered in silence
1572
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:13,280
and never actually reported them
1573
01:24:13,360 --> 01:24:15,440
but carried it with them
to their graves.
1574
01:24:15,520 --> 01:24:18,080
Most of them are deceased now
unfortunately.
1575
01:24:18,160 --> 01:24:21,040
I hope the families don't think
about him, and they're just...
1576
01:24:21,120 --> 01:24:25,120
they can get a very small iota
of satisfaction
1577
01:24:25,200 --> 01:24:28,440
in the fact that he is no longer
doing the same things
1578
01:24:28,520 --> 01:24:30,640
to other people
that happened to their families.
1579
01:24:30,720 --> 01:24:32,880
We went through an exercise
with family liaison officers
1580
01:24:32,960 --> 01:24:35,920
of phoning and telling the victims
that somebody had been arrested,
1581
01:24:36,000 --> 01:24:39,360
and one of the victims said
that back to her, she said,
1582
01:24:39,440 --> 01:24:42,320
"That's great. I can go back
to sleeping at night now."
1583
01:24:43,720 --> 01:24:45,960
I think he thought
he was invincible.
1584
01:24:46,040 --> 01:24:47,240
I think he thought
he'd never get caught.
1585
01:24:47,320 --> 01:24:50,360
He was arrested on the 17th day
of the surveillance operation.
1586
01:24:51,720 --> 01:24:55,840
So you had 17 years on the one hand,
17 days on the other.
1587
01:24:55,920 --> 01:24:58,400
It was only Colin's fresh impetus
1588
01:24:58,480 --> 01:25:01,400
which led to Delroy Grant
being caught.
1589
01:25:01,480 --> 01:25:05,400
I always knew that I wanted to go
to get in front of him.
1590
01:25:05,480 --> 01:25:09,440
I believed from really early on
that we needed to ignore the DNA,
1591
01:25:09,520 --> 01:25:10,760
we needed to catch a burglar.
1592
01:25:10,840 --> 01:25:14,360
Everybody kept telling me,
"We're not a burglary squad."
1593
01:25:14,440 --> 01:25:16,800
They needed to be a burglary squad.
1594
01:25:16,880 --> 01:25:18,520
That's when we got him.
138699
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