Original subtitles

Please, emergency, what's the location?

Bar, train station, bar, please.

In a puppet phone box.

There's blood everywhere.

I've just been raped and attacked.

Put your shit out, mate.

I'm bleeding everywhere.

OK, stay on the line for me.

But after coming to you, please don't move.

In North Birmingham, a woman has reported being attacked and raped in a

phone box in the early hours of Saturday morning.

While she's taken to hospital for treatment, a forensic investigation gets

underway.

This was a really, really brutal and vicious attack.

You don't expect someone to be raped in a telephone box.

On a busy road in the early hours of the morning.

She's gone out for a night out and she's not safe to walk the streets.

So the telephone box is where the actual incident happened, isn't it? Yeah. I

mean, it's a real vicious attack. It's horrific, isn't it?

At one o 'clock -ish in the morning, how busy is the traffic and how well is it

lit as well? You don't know, do you?

So I think she swapped the offence location.

I'll have a look and just see if we can get any cellular material.

It's very brazen to do it out in the open.

I'm amazed that nobody saw or stopped.

Crime scene coordinator Jo Ward directs a detailed examination of the phone box,

looking for any evidence that may help police identify the attacker.

There isn't anything true to that right there.

A public telephone box can cause some issues.

Members of the public use that phone box.

There'd be their DNA, as well as obviously any fingerprints as well. And

kind of contaminating the scene as such.

And all you see are the initial marks here, when they appear to be in blood.

The blood in the phone box is mainly contact marks, so someone that's

or has got blood on them actually making contact with the surface.

There's a bit there and there's a bit inside here, so on the side of that you

want to look into more. Yeah. We know the victim was badly beaten, but does

offender bled?

Has the victim managed to fight back?

Whose blood is it?

We really need to identify quickly.

who is responsible for this offence.

Where the phone box is, it's the bus, you know.

It's a train station, it's here. It's that phone box just after.

Detectives from the Specialist Rape and Sexual Assault Team gather for an urgent

briefing.

Right, morning everyone.

So what we know so far, we had a lone female leaving Witherspoon's public

where she was brutally raped and attacked inside the phone box.

So obviously what we know is when, we know where.

The main focus of this this morning is who, who the male is that has attacked

her.

This attack on our victim is what we call a strange rape.

There's no relationship, don't know each other, it's just a straight grab off

the street.

I'd say that they're rare.

But with all stranger rates, the biggest challenge is we've got to connect two

people who seem to be not connected in any way, and we've got to get those two

people, and we've got to put them in the same place at the same time.

Adele, I know you've been with our victim.

I understand she's got some horrendous injuries.

Are you able just to give us a bit of a brief on how she is? She's coming across

so strong, but I think she's in shock.

What are actually her injuries?

So visually you can see all from the face.

She's bled quite a lot, hasn't she? Under her eye, there's a big cut.

That's quite deep, that is.

Your priority really is your high and low vaginal fog as well as the pants as

well.

I mean, you can all appreciate anybody who's wandering around our street is

capable of doing what he's done.

We've got to focus everything on getting this guy in right now.

Thank you.

He's committed horrendous acts.

I can't predict what he's going to do next. Every day that goes by that he's

caught, the risk to the public is obviously increasing.

After receiving hospital treatment, the victim is brought for a detailed

forensic medical examination.

The victim is so brave to come forward and report this incident.

Are you OK? I'm just going to raise your gown a little bit.

When dealing with a rape case, the victim themselves are actually classed

theme.

We advise, you know, not to wash, not to go to the toilet, because we can get

forensic evidence from them, DNA from intimate swabs or from clothing.

If you're uncomfortable at any point, tell me and I will stop, OK?

You're doing really well.

Understandably, the victim has gone through something so horrific and so

traumatic, and we have to work at their speed.

Now I'm just going to take the sample, just the tip of the swab.

But we have a forensic window to gather the best forensic evidence before DNA

starts to degrade and can be contaminated.

So time is of the essence.

Once intimate samples have been collected... So I'm just going to take

underwear.

Items of clothing are also taken to be forensically processed at a specialist

lab. From the clothing, we may get semen, but also cellular DNA of the

that she touched the victim's clothing.

I'm hopeful, but there's never any guarantees.

The next priority for detectives is to get a full account of the attack from

victim.

We know how stressful these are.

The victim's gone through a traumatic incident.

We are asking somebody to sit down in front of a perfect stranger and talk

the most traumatic experience of their lives.

But it's important for us to get the account from that victim really early on

because there's bits that she can add that we can never get from anywhere

I think I'm

just trying to absorb what

happened to myself.

Yeah, of course.

I can

see she

can't open her eyes.

They're all bruised. She's got a broken nose when you're looking at her

injuries. The level of violence used, reliving it and talking through it, you

can just exacerbate their trauma.

So you've got to guide the victim.

I thought someone grabbed me.

Where?

Sorry, where did they grab you? They grabbed me from behind and pushed me in

phone box.

He had his arms around me.

He was punching me as well.

And with one hand, he took my skirt and my leggings down.

And then I'm trying to move, but then he's continually, like, hitting me,

hitting me on my head and my face.

And he raped me.

Have you felt any ejaculation?

I don't know, to be honest.

Everything just...

During a new lease, has he spoken to you?

He did just say, shut up, or something like that.

But he did have, like, a foreign accent.

Like, Middle East, Kurdish, Romanian.

Yeah.

And what about his heart in his film?

It wasn't that big.

I think, um...

I think she's done incredibly well. She

was able to tell us his height.

She gave us his accent of where she believed he was to originate from.

This can sometimes be a bit subjective, but that's the only information about

the suspect.

that we've got at this time.

It was a really good starting point.

There's a bit there and there's a bit here. There might be some more on the

inside.

After swabbing the blood in the phone box, the forensic team hunt for any

fingerprints that may have been left by the rapist.

The fact that the rape has happened in a confined space gives us more chance

that the suspect may have touched the telephone box if he's committing that

offence. What we'd be looking for is, is there any fingerprints in blood?

There may be some more here, but it's not the best quality.

To improve the visibility of any prints,

Investigators apply chemical dyes that react with proteins found in blood.

I can definitely see a colour change here.

There's a few good ones there.

And that one there.

They identify a cluster of fingerprints on the outside of the frame.

Originally, the fingerprints were very faint when we had taken them beforehand.

They appeared to be in blood. But with the diary agent, you actually bring out

the contrast, which should be better for identification purposes for the

fingerprint bureau.

Photos of the enhanced prints are fast -tracked to the fingerprint bureau to

check against the Police National Computer.

Is this the biggest mistake he's made?

Because this could be what identifies him.

CCTV, where are we in relation to the CCTV?

Axon links have been sent for the actual camera footage from one stop shopping

centre security team themselves.

The footage was actually going to go to 4am because their camera's pretty good

and it gives a whole overview of the area.

Birmingham is swamped in CCTV, but it comes with its own challenges.

There's a lot of cameras around traffic, routes, buses, things like that.

Potentially hundreds of hours of footage.

You can never make any guarantees in terms of what you're going to find.

Digital media investigator Rob McKinnon is tasked with scrutinising CCTV of the

area around the crime scene.

You do need to be patient, you need to have attention to detail, because you

be looking for one thing, but you need to record what else you see, because

anything could end up down the line being relevant.

To narrow down the victims' movements on the night, detectives are dispatched to

the pub she left.

Moments before the attack.

So at the minute we've just got an entrance for your camera and then the

area camera.

Okay.

Quite often cameras, especially older cameras, the night footage will be of

lower quality.

It makes it much more difficult to do things like facial recognition. It makes

it more difficult to get an image that would be suitable for release to the

public. Is there a camera?

By the fruit machine?

It's not the greatest one. It'll be that one.

Okay.

You get differences in colours, so the way that the pixels sometimes blur

together during movement can make it difficult to identify what is actually

happening.

Do you reckon you'll probably have better footage?

Out of push.

Looking at multiple cameras, Rob focuses on a key time frame between midnight

and 2am.

We're aware that the victim came from the pub before the offence.

That gives us a starting point.

So we can look at CCTV that covers that area to identify when it is the suspect

and the victim the first to come aware of each other.

We're looking for people that are acting in a way that doesn't make a lot of

sense. You know, people standing around by themselves, maybe watching.

He hangs around for a few more minutes.

At this point, the victim is still in the weather suit.

Rob homes in on a man.

Then he wanders off up here.

And tracks him, loitering between the pub and the phone box.

Victim comes out.

Crosses the road towards the spaceship.

And at about 1 .3, the same man walks up this way.

Which is the time when the victim is going towards the spaceship.

What she doesn't know is that he goes around the corner and waits.

He walks away.

The next

camera shows the

attack taking place.

I'm presuming he is waiting around there.

It's the worst footage I've ever seen.

It's the level of violence and the continuation of that violence.

You can't get emotionally involved in every single piece of footage that you

watch, but there's some that will stick with you, and this is certainly one that

will stick with me.

I tend to try and...

channel it almost into that determination to find whoever it is

this.

After the attack, the offender runs out of range of the street

cameras and disappears.

I can honestly say that in 24 years of policing, I've not watched a piece of

footage that has impacted like this has.

But as horrendous as the offence was, we have to take positive from his

brazenness and his violence because hopefully he's left the forensic

that he may not necessarily have left should it have been more of a thought

or controlled attack.

Despite having CCTV of the attack, the image is not clear enough for police to

identify the offender.

With no identifiable CCTV,

detectives are hoping the bloody fingerprints from the phone box may

lead.

It's a digital photo of rig detail associated with blood on the exterior of

phone box.

But first, examiner Mick Killeen must compare the prints to those belonging to

the victim to eliminate them from the inquiry.

So the first distinctive characteristic we see is a ridge that's flowing then

ends what we call a ridge ending and then the ridge ending appears

in the same formation sequence in the victim set of fingerprints.

From that first characteristic there is one intervening ridge then a further

ridge ending and then another intervening ridge and then another ridge

There are eight ridge characteristics in the same formation and sequence

appearing on the crime scene mark and on the fingerprint form. So I'm satisfied

that this is an identification against the victim's set of elimination prints.

24 hours after the attack and with the rapist still at large.

Jo and Emma meet for an urgent review of the case.

So I just want a bit of a summary of what's happened since we last spoke.

So the fingerprints from the telephone box have come back. A lot of them were

insufficient detail, but one came back and was eliminated to a victim.

Went and dried blood swabs from the actual phone box.

The assumption is really all that blood is going to be hers.

All the intimate samples have already been submitted and we didn't get any

positive DNA results from them.

We're obviously waiting for the DNA to come back from the parents from the

victim.

I was really hopeful that we'd find some DNA or fingerprints, but the results

are all negative so far.

We're against the clock.

I am feeling the pressure because this man is a danger to the public.

He really is.

6 .30, let's get the very latest local news for Birmingham now with Sean Moore.

BRNB News, the police are investigating a rape and assault in Perry Bar.

West Midlands Police were called to Walsall Road in the early hours of

morning following reports that a woman had been raped.

The man's described as having a slim build and wearing tracksuit bottoms and

hoodie. Anyone with information is being urged to come forward.

Detectives Emma and Adele have now received CCTV from the pub the victim

before the attack.

This is the foyer looking out, so people entering into Wetherspoons.

So we can see faces.

They need to scan through hours of that evening's footage to see if they can

spot the man in a dark tracksuit seen committing the offence.

I know that she's in the Wetherspoons pub.

What I don't know are the questions that he's asking. Where is he coming to all

of this?

Is he drinking in the pub?

Has he seen her in there before? Has there been any previous contact between

them? We can see what clothing he was wearing at the time of the attack. Give

a starting point.

There's some guys hovering around here.

This guy looks like he could be our

guy.

Same tracksuit, same trainers.

A man matching the description given by the victim enters the pub just after

midnight.

That's our guy. He's come straight in.

He's looked at the male toilet, then he's gone straight into the female

He's gone into the women's toilet?

Yeah. Let's see how long he's in there for.

10 seconds.

15 seconds.

He's coming back out now. And he's gone into the men's? Yeah.

He's just peering, watching the bar area. What's he looking for?

Is his hand on his crotch?

I'd say he's masturbating there.

It's really disturbing, isn't it?

I think he's getting himself excited at the thought of attacking.

That is predatory behaviour.

Emma and Adele closely monitor the man's movement as he hangs around the toilet

area.

Hold on, is that our victim?

He's coming back in.

He's not even looking or trying to get them in this time. He's gone straight

She's just exited the toilet.

He doesn't know that. He still thinks she's in those toilets.

I think he's followed away into the toilet.

It's really terrifying to watch that.

It's targeted us.

At 1 .20am, the man can be seen exiting the pub, shortly before the victim

leaves.

I'm happy from the footage that we've watched now.

We've got some really good imagery that we can use for...

Press release for public and also between the officers.

The images of the man wanted in connection with the rape are circulated

force -wide alert.

Got an image.

Yes. I'm going to send this through to you.

And urgently released to the public.

If you've got it in you to rape somebody, my opinion is the chances are

just a one -off, so we have to catch that person before.

They were able to do it to anybody else.

Rach, do you want to just come over and have a look at this CCTV?

It shows our suspect actually punches the bus stop.

While reviewing CCTV for any further forensic leads...

Jo has spotted the suspect shortly before the attack.

This actual telephone box here is where our victim was raped. And he gives it a

real hard punch.

And he might have even cut the skin. Yeah.

The offender has clearly got some anger issues, the way he was walking.

And he's really punched this bus stop quite hard.

He may have cut himself, so there may be blood on the bus stop itself.

I'm thinking forensic opportunity straight away.

So when you look at CCTV, you can see him punch around this area.

So I'm going to kind of swab this area in the middle here.

Coordinator Rachel Hughes is sent to swab the bus stop for any trace of skin

cells left by the offender's punch.

Unfortunately, there's no trace of any blood at all, so hopefully get some sort

of cellular material from there.

This bus stop is obviously open to the elements. With it raining, there's a

possibility they could wash away evidence.

Time goes on, DNA deteriorates, so, you know, time is the essence, really.

One of our own officers has recognised a potential suspect from his patch that

he covers.

A known offender who closely resembles the circulated CCTV image has been

identified by a police officer.

So we're just doing some intel checks on this person now.

He was interviewed in relation to an assault with intent to cause serious

at the end of 2019.

Again then, a malicious wounding at the end of 2017.

Interviewed again for another assault with intent to cause serious harm.

So there's a history of violence from this person.

And the victim states this was such a vicious attack for that match, yes.

He had me from behind and...

Continually hit me.

With blows to my face and my head.

So when he's hitting you, what's he using?

His hands. Okay, when he's had cancer, we're talking.

It happened really fast.

My head is a bit fuzzled.

Again, I'm sorry.

We've got images of him on our systems.

There is a striking resemblance in relation to the image.

The hair on the top, the same, similar age.

Everything keeps pointing that this is potentially our suspect, so I think it's

really important that we get him straight in.

We've got to act fast.

We're not going home today until he's in custody because we cannot have that man

walking around these streets a second longer.

An arrest team heads directly to the suspect's address.

We're waiting for forensic.

I think if we do a search of the premises, try and locate whatever we can

In my opinion, he holds quite a likeness.

Yes, a strong likeness.

Two and a half days after the rape, police have a suspect in custody.

What's been arrested for?

Rape.

This is life.

Is there proof of this? Have you got proof of this?

Joe Ward, crime scene coordinator.

Hi, Jo, it's Adelia from Rafa. So I'd like to speak to you in relation to the

guy that we've got in custody already.

Yeah, so we need to obviously come up with a bit of a forensic strategy.

Yeah.

When we get suspected in custody for a sexual offence, what we're looking for

any trace of DNA that belongs to the victim.

The offender is caught on CCTV, which is circumstantial, because the picture may

not be clear or people view CCTV.

differently from person to person.

So I'm really conscious of trying to get as much forensic evidence to provide

that link between the suspect and victim.

Obviously because she was punched quite a few times, I'll get the exercise

photographs of the palms and the backs of the hands.

We'll do like a fingernail clippings and also kind of scrapings as well. Her DNA

under his nails underneath and it may be that even though he's washed his hands,

there still may be some kind of blood still underneath his nails.

And I presume you're doing the sexual flops, are you? Yes.

He's in a dry cell and we're going to complete all of those with the medical

staff at the custody.

Brilliant.

While the suspect is held in a dry cell to prevent him from washing away any

evidence, tests are underway to forensically connect him to the attack.

First, we're just going to photograph the underwear as they've been received.

What we're looking for is any trace of semen because hopefully we would be able

to get DNA from the actual semen or there may be some cellular DNA that's

transferred from his hands where he's touched the underwear and pulled the

underwear off.

Forensic examiner Jamie Lee Knight.

starts by testing for skin cells that the suspect may have transferred from

hands to the underwear.

We're going to mini -take the outside waistband because the offender has

the victim from behind and pulled their clothing down and we're just looking to

target any areas that the suspect might have come into contact with.

Now that the cellular has been taken onto screening for semen,

I'm just making sure that the item is wet enough for any semen staining that's

present to be transferred to the blotting paper.

Next, the blotting paper is tested for the presence of semen.

If acetophosphate is present, we'll get a purple reaction come up on the

blotting paper.

This purple indicates the presence of semen.

That's a very strong positive.

While the underwear will undergo further testing to look for the offender's DNA

detectives are preparing to question the suspect.

I've got a lot of questions that are going to be asked of him. Our suspicions

are that it's him.

It's on him to tell us where he was to prove to us that that's not him that's

committed that attack.

I would like to read out a prepared statement.

I vehemently deny all of the allegations against me.

I was not present at the scene of the alleged assault and rape. I've never met

this person in my life.

Although I do not recall where I was on Saturday, I was not near Perry Bar train

station. I will now be answering no comments or questions put to me.

I appreciate that statement, but obviously we've got some further

we need to answer.

We'll show you some CCTV captured from the Wetherspoons in one stop in Perry

Bar.

Do you recognise the man there?

No comment. Is that you?

No comment.

Is there anybody that you were with that could verify where you were and that

you weren't there?

No comment.

You say this through the case of mistaken identity.

However, you can't tell me what you were doing.

You can't offer me any names of anybody that will be able to verify your

whereabouts.

It's hard to believe.

I don't know, it might just be my opinion, but it's hard to believe that

can't remember what you're doing on Friday night.

Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to remember that?

No problem.

If someone goes, no comment, I think what you're hiding, if you're innocent,

have you not given an account? Why have you not told the officers where you were

so that they can then check that and this would all be over?

I don't think at this point we've got enough to charge, so we're now relying

the forensics to take us further forward with him.

With the suspect refusing to answer any questions, detectives have 24 hours

to charge or release him.

I'm just going to cut a strip out of this top layer.

At Eurofin's laboratory...

Jamie Lee concentrates on the section of underwear which tested positive for

semen in a bid to find any sperm heads containing the suspect's DNA.

We tease apart the fibres, so basically if there's any sperm heads

trapped within them, just making sure that when we put our reagents onto

them, it's the best possible chance of them being released.

A centrifuge machine is used to separate the more dense sperm particles.

Next, Jamie Lee adds a dye to stain the sample.

If any sperm heads are present, they will turn red.

It's really faint.

There's 80 to 300 million sperm heads in an average ejaculation.

But on this slide, I can only see a single sperm head.

Forensic science has come on massively since I joined.

From needing quite a large amount to obtain a DNA profile, you know, you need

pinhead size.

But in this case, we've got one sperm head and it's a difficult process.

So I'm really hoping that the scientists can actually still work with that and

be able to achieve a DNA profile that matches this person in custody.

While the single sperm head is fast -tracked for DNA extraction and

Jo reviews evidence from the suspect.

So this is the male that is currently in custody for the rape offence.

Just looking through the photographs that were taken earlier today.

The discovery of CCTV showing the offender punching a bus stop has

to focus on his hands.

When you're punching a hard surface with some force as well, which it was clear

from the CCTV, you really did punch it at force.

What I would expect to find is some visible injuries to the hand, and it was

right hand.

He's also punched the victim several times.

And again, I would expect to find some swelling or some bruising.

On the left hand is what appears to be old scarring.

But there really isn't any visible injuries whatsoever to the right hand at

So that's a little bit concerning.

Do you have any issues with injuries?

Yeah, obviously from the level of injuries that she's got and how many

he's actually punched her, I would have expected some kind of injury to his

hands, certainly his right hand which is used, and there's nothing at all.

The victim states to me during her interview that it's definitely either

Kurdish, Romanian.

type of accent.

Having listened to the interview, the guy that just interviewed, unless he's

on an accent the whole way through it, he's definitely not having an easy

accent.

There's just a few things now that just start to give me concern about the guy

in custody.

So we've got someone in custody and at this moment we haven't got anything but

an identification to put him there.

It's a really difficult position to be in. What we need is forensics to say,

yep, we found some DNA.

We've got the right person in custody.

I'll say it's not him.

With the 24 -hour custody clock to charge the suspect running out,

are granted a 12 -hour extension to carry out further inquiries.

So the first footage we've got after the offence, he starts to walk.

up Birchfield Road.

With the suspect giving no account of his movements, Rob is trying to further

pinpoint where he went after the attack by widening the CCTV search radius to

three miles from the phone box.

It's a very manual, very time -consuming part of the job.

We've recovered hundreds of hours of footage that needs to be reviewed using

track and trace principle.

where we identify where somebody goes off camera.

And then he crosses over onto Harrier Way.

We then try and find the next camera on that route.

The next footage we've got, he appears on the left -hand side, walking up

towards the right.

And then a few minutes later, the second male, wearing a green jacket, walks in

the same direction.

Rob has discovered footage of what appears to be the suspect with another

15 minutes after the attack.

We're not sure of the identity of the second male, but obviously we know that

wasn't involved in the accident because we've got the footage of that and that

shows that this male was acting alone.

You can see that there's some movement on the left -hand side.

These two males are our males that we've been tracking.

Now, in the corner of this footage, you can see there is a dark -coloured van.

It looks potentially blue.

And the lights turn on and the doors seem to open and close.

And at around 2 .40 in the morning, the van lights

turn on and it drives away.

We now know that 55 minutes after the offence, the suspect has driven away.

Right now, we need that blue van. That's what we need to find, because that is

our main link now between the suspect and the offence.

Using automatic number plate recognition, the van is tracked from the

offender drives away until later that same morning.

Have you got it? Have you got the vehicle anywhere?

Let's have a look.

After identifying the van's number plate, detectives are able to link it to

address.

I've picked up a big person who is Cornel Gabriel Finney -Tach.

He matches the description.

I don't think his hair was a bit... No, I think when you look at the hairline on

the moving footage, it matches the hairline there.

Right. So we've now got a name? Yeah.

Police have now identified a second potential suspect, 21 -year -old Cornell

Filippacci.

We've got a name, we've got an address.

He's driving that van straight after that attack.

It's only circumstantial at this stage, so we need to get him in as soon as

possible.

Despite police already having a man in custody, an order is issued for Philly

Patch's immediate arrest.

Three and a half days after the attack, Cornel Filippacci is brought into

custody to be questioned.

What's your name, please?

Yeah.

Cornell, yeah?

And the offence is? Right.

OK. What language would you like to speak in? Romanian.

OK.

What do you do for work?

The arrest of a second suspect.

presents Senior Investigating Officer Emma Watson with a unique dilemma.

I've got two suspects in custody.

Only one of them can have committed the offence.

That first suspect, I don't want to release him because I'm still not

that it isn't him.

The fact the police officer's identified him and I know about an offender and we

need to protect the public from a potential rapist.

But with Cornel Filippacci, I've got a name that's Eastern European and victim

describes him as Eastern European.

The accent, that fits.

First fit for the CCTV.

But without that forensic evidence, I can't say that it is him.

Let's go.

Police now need to capture any potential DNA evidence.

which may link Feli Paci to the victim.

Open your mouth. Thank you.

Even though it's a few days after the offence, there are still opportunities

get forensic evidence from him.

It may be that he's not washed his clothing since the offence.

He may have not showered.

Flip your hand over for me. Thank you.

Intimate swabs will also be analyzed for any traces of the victim.

Have a look at your hands, please, sir.

These little marks here, can I photograph those, please?

But there's no... That one, what you say, don't help me. No, I appreciate...

not stupid, you know. No, I'm not either, but... Take the picture and

Take the picture, that's it. Take the picture. You can take a picture, no

problem.

Okay, let's move this.

On the respect to Hatton, there are visible injuries which are encouraging,

so he's got to explain those injuries.

Just in that room, I can't.

Can I ask you to state your full name, please?

You were arrested for the offence of rape.

Where were you the late night of 17th of January and early hours up to 7am the

18th of January?

No comment.

So that evening, did you visit a Wetherspoons public house?

No comment.

Wetherspoons public house.

I believe you've yourself hit the female three times to the face and the head.

Is that you in that footage?

No comment.

Did you drag her to a phone box?

Did you pull her underwear down?

Did you vaginally rape this female?

No comment.

Does this kind of thing excite you, preying on vulnerable, lone females on

street?

No comment.

I'm just so frustrated that the best evidence that we've got at this time is

only circumstantial with the CCTV.

Just can't get clearing off CCTV to identify which ones commit the offence.

Unless forensic tests come back conclusively linking one man to the

detectives may have to release both suspects.

A specialist laboratory has been attempting to extract DNA from the

head found on the victim's underwear.

Joe has been sent their report.

I've just literally received the update from the lab with the results of the

underwear. Yep.

A single sperm head was observed.

But that's come back inconclusive.

The sample's too weak.

Oh, God. Right, OK.

It's quite disappointing, really.

I was hopeful for a positive result and a name.

But fingers crossed to further testing from the cellular DNA and get us a

result. OK.

This feels like a massive setback.

The process of extracting sperm heads from semen is tricky and we're not

the results through.

You know, and that really worries me at this time.

With police lacking a forensic link to either suspect and an approaching

deadline to release them...

One last test remains.

A full DNA profile has been extracted from skin cells on the underwear touched

by the attacker.

So we've had a clear major which is matching the female and then you've got

these additional components which indicate Only the presence of one more

Senior reporter Charlotte Hargreaves now checks to see if the profile matches

either suspect.

So we can do a direct comparison to the DNA profile of the initial suspect.

So here is a 21 .2, 27.

And coming to the harm stain result, there's no 21 .2 and there's no 27.

This area, he's at 14 .2, 15 here.

And then if I go on to the crime stain, there's no 14 .2 or 15.

This individual has not contributed DNA to this result.

Charlotte is able to show that DNA from the first suspect is not present on the

victim's underwear.

Next.

She moves on to examine DNA from the second suspect.

So you can see that this 16 does match Cornell's

Lepache.

Again, we go to the next area, 1316 .2. So you can see that those two DNA

components are represented here.

All the way through, you can see all of his components.

are represented in these smaller ones.

So, in my opinion, Cornell -Filippacci's DNA profile does match to DNA

components present in the colostomes.

Analysis of these findings shows that the DNA result is a billion times more

likely to be from Cornell -Filippacci than not.

Hello, Joy, are you all right? Yeah, not too bad, thank you.

I've got some really, really, really good news.

Oh, brill.

The samples taken from the underwear, they've obviously been compared, and

actually matched Cornell Filippacci.

So, really, really pleased.

Oh, that is brilliant. I should go brief everyone. Thanks.

No, brilliant. Thanks ever so much for letting me know, and I'll just brief

everyone, let them all know, and then I'll get back in touch with you about

we do next.

This is the forensic evidence that we were waiting for that has tied it all

together.

to get the news in that you've got the right person in custody. It can't be

anyone else.

To be able to go tell the victim that we've got him, it's just such a relief.

But the other side of it is

that we were able to clear an innocent man.

To be able to say forensically it wasn't him means that I can release him.

Most important is we'll be able to charge a dangerous offender because

evidence now, there's no denying it, there's no arguing with it. He cannot

account for why his DNA is in her underwear other than he's committed the

offence.

Okay, so Cornell, you will be charged with the offences that have been

authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service.

So the first offence is an offence of rape.

The second charge is one of GBH with intent.

You will be aware of how serious these charges are.

Is there anything else that you want to say?

No.

There's lots of emotions that go through your head.

I think the level of violence that was used really put an urgency on it.

The officer will take you back to your cell now.

I certainly didn't feel that he had any remorse or any regret about what had

happened.

The important thing now is the person that we believe has committed this

is off the streets.

I'm as confident as I can be. We've got a strong case and I'm hopeful we can get

it across that line.

We're just out of court.

All done and dusted.

15 years.

Reduced to 10 on his early guilty plea.

So, great work.

All done. Really good evidence.

Oh, that's brilliant news.

Really, really pleased that we've obviously got justice for the victim.

This case for me has been a bit of a rollercoaster.

You know, I was quite concerned at one point that we weren't going to be able

get any DNA from the underwear.

So it's a massive relief.

Forensics was crucial in this investigation.

It put a violent and dangerous male behind bars.

The evidence was that strong that Cornell felt, you know, he had no

but to plead guilty.

Of course, we can't forget the most important person in all of this, and

our victim.

It can't be easy. I know you never get over something like this, but I can just

hope that this is the start.

of her rebuilding her life and her future.