Original subtitles

Once I woke up, I like opened my eyes and I saw like a figure in the dark.

There was like a man and he was kneeling next to my bed.

And I felt like really panicked and scared.

And then he showed me the knife.

He was covering my mouth.

He said you better not tell anybody or else I will kill your family.

Emergency? Between

what

time?

Is she any idea who it could be?

Police officer's on the way there.

Following the report of a serious sexual assault on an 11 -year -old girl, a

forensic team led by investigator Rachel Hughes is called to the house where the

attack took place.

Sexual assaults on anyone, they're always horrific.

But when you do hear about these things on children, it's very shocking.

Their innocence is taken away from them.

The victim says she's been sexually assaulted while she's been asleep in bed

a stranger, someone who's not known at all to the victim.

These kind of cases are very rare, but right now we don't know what we're

looking at at this stage.

Whilst the victim is spoken to by officers, a forensic search of the house

begins, looking for any signs of an intruder.

The important areas within this crime scene are the point of entry and

the child's bedroom itself.

Any surfaces that might have had contact from the offender.

We're looking at the doors, door handles, looking at the door frames,

swabs for DNA and fingerprinting those surfaces as well.

Obviously we just want to make sure we don't miss anything.

You've got someone who's really predatory, they've got horrible sexual

tendencies, and they're very, very dangerous. You don't know what their

step could be.

As Rachel's team continue their search for evidence, the case is immediately

assigned to a specialist unit charged with solving the most serious crimes

against children.

This is a briefing in relation to Op Tetra Green.

a serious sexual assault that's taken place on an 11 -year -old child right

at her father's address.

Just to put some context around that, so our victim resides with her mum during

the week but lives with her dad at the weekends.

So we're told that she went to bed around half past ten on the evening and

has stated that she woke him up during the night, stating that she had a

nightmare.

Later on, then, she returned to her mum's address.

And it was at her mum's address that then she disclosed to her mum and

grandmother, I believe, what had happened to her.

She said that there was a man who broke into her house. He woke me up and tried

to make me do things.

He was trying to make me touch areas of him and trying to touch areas of me.

He was putting his fingers inside me.

So I think it's very early stages, but obviously we got serious.

sexual assault of a very young child in her home.

Lots of things are going through my mind.

I've got the worry, is this a targeted sexual attack?

Have we got a stranger who's got into the house and sexually assaulted them?

Really, really concerning.

I've got three children, two girls and a lad. You've got it in the back of your

mind that I think you wouldn't be normal if you didn't, that this could be your

children.

We've got no witnesses at this point and no known suspects.

So we are having to play catch up.

It's an awful offence. So I think we do want to try and get this one as quick as

we can.

It is a really unusual and very distressing incident.

The challenge that we have is that it's happened in a private residence.

It happened in the middle of the night, so there's no other witnesses other than

the victim.

This is a very dangerous offence and a very dangerous suspect that's committed

this.

I think the million -dollar question is, why that house and why her?

It was very obvious there's kids there, wasn't there? Yeah, definitely.

There's a football goal, there's a rebounder thing, so... Is it

that he has just been walking down there and he has seen the access?

Because as soon as you come into that alleyway, it's not far, and is it

opportunistic?

We are up against the clock, certainly forensically.

If it's a targeted...

Before vital evidence is lost, The child has agreed to an urgent forensic

medical examination accompanied by her family.

OK, so we have a female, 11 years old, sexual assault, and she's attending

within the hour.

The forensic medical examination of the victim could be the only chance we've

got of getting the offender's DNA.

With a sexual assault, the victim is actually classed as a crime scene

themselves. The reason being is that there's elements of the offender that

been left behind on the victim themselves.

Hi, lovely. Will you just jump on this couch for me?

Crucial samples from the child will be collected by a specially trained nurse.

I'm just going to show you this swab I'm opening up for you, and you can have a

look. It's just like a normal cotton bud swab.

It must be so daunting for her to go through something like this. We can't

forget, obviously, the fact that she's an 11 -year -old girl, but we've got

specially trained staff there and they try and make the victim feel at ease as

much as possible.

I'm just going to take some swabs.

OK.

DNA can remain on the victim for a period of time, but there is a forensic

window of capturing those samples from the victim because evidence can be lost.

The problem you've got is things like the victim having a wash, the victim

showering.

Sperm can only stay present for up to seven days, so it's critical that this

done. The sooner they're taken, the better, really.

OK, all done. There you go.

You've done really well.

The swabs are sent for priority testing.

in the hope that they may reveal the attacker's DNA.

Detectives need to gather as much detail as possible from the child about what

she can remember.

The 11 -year -old is interviewed by Stacey Reynolds, who is specially

speak to vulnerable children.

Your mum's next door and your nan's next door is the waiting room, so if you

just want to go and see your mum and your nan, just let me know, I'm guided

you, OK?

So for an 11 -year -old child, it is very difficult to ask them to talk about

massive trauma.

Some children obviously only remember parts and don't know if it could be a

dream or if it's actually happened.

It's very difficult.

But her account is crucial.

She's the only person that knows what happened in that room.

So you're here today to tell me what's happened.

So, um, when I woke up, there was, like, a man.

And he was kneeling next to my bed.

And I felt like really panicked and scared because I thought I was going to

kidnapped.

That's when he covered my mouth and he kept saying, don't say a word.

And he kept touching me in places and then he started licking me.

And then he got on my bed and then he...

He made me touch his private area as well.

OK. So can you remember which part of your body you touched first?

My belly button.

I was really, like, frightened because I didn't know, like, if I should tell

somebody.

But this was before he threatened me.

I know that you said something about a knife.

He showed me the knife and it looked like it folded, like one of those knives

that you cut carpets with.

He said, you better not tell anybody or else.

I will kill your parents and everyone that lives in this household.

This is horrific.

A stranger has entered her address.

He's sexually assaulted her.

in her own home when she should be safe sleeping, this is your worst nightmare.

This is any parent's worst nightmare.

So can you describe this person in as much detail as possible?

He was in black clothing.

He was a little bit, like, fat.

Like a little bit of a tummy.

And then he's, like, bald.

OK. Do you know what happened with the knife after he threatened you?

I think he put it like... back in his pocket, and that's when he took my

Can you tell me what the bottle is and how he turned it, please?

So it's, like, a reusable bottle.

He said, I'm going to need to take this.

He, like, opened his coat and then he, like, grabbed the bottle and put it

inside.

Then he stood by my door and he was saying sorry a couple of times and then

left in the direction of the back door.

I'm like, I was still really panicked and scared because the man knows where I

live. And if he finds that I've told anybody, he knows where to go and where

kill people.

But I know I need to tell somebody because it was, like, really serious.

So that's why I waited till I got to my mum's house.

OK.

She was amazingly brave.

I'm always mindful that trauma can affect memories in different ways, but

considering she's 11, the detail that she went into was amazing.

So I believe the child, but we do need corroborating evidence to show that it

has actually happened.

How are you feeling now? Obviously a lot's happened.

I feel, like, a bit relieved because it's, like, over now and I'm glad that I

killed somebody.

OK, that's fine. Thank you so much.

Armed with the victim's clear description of her attacker, detectives

tweets for CCTV near her home, hoping to find a camera that captured him.

There's somebody out there that's dangerous.

Somebody who's done the unthinkable thing to someone else.

So we really need to find them. It's a matter of urgency.

There's been an incident that took place in the early hours, and I was just

wondering, firstly, if your ring doorbell works.

We don't have a clue who this person is. It can feel like a needle in a

haystack.

We're trying to track him going to the offence location.

Yeah.

There's no cameras here, is there?

Not really anything.

What's that?

Oh, this is a really good alleyway because it's really long.

Yeah. And there's no cameras that cover it, so if he was trying to avoid CCTV,

this is a very good route to have taken.

I don't suppose you know if CCTV works at all.

There are no CCTV that capture that particular house, so we're looking at

surrounding areas, but ultimately we're trying to identify this person.

We want to get justice for the victim.

As detectives hunt for CCTV, the forensic team searches for the items

described by the child.

The knife she was threatened with.

And the water bottle the attacker took from her room.

The victim's account could be really crucial for us.

Now we can target those items that potentially have traces of the DNA from

offender on there.

Hi Neil, it's Rachel Hughes from the Crime Scene Coordinators.

Hello Rachel.

this kind of scene we're very lucky actually that it's predominantly

inside a house and therefore we haven't sort of lost much forensically okay

we've got um like a pair of french doors and there's a and also a kitchen door

we've taken dna swabs from the inside and outside surfaces of both those doors

and we've also done the same on the victim's bedroom door the outside

that and the inside surface of that has been swabbed as well

The problem you've got is when you have a family household that is actually the

crime scene, there can be a lot of footfall through there, there can be a

traces of DNA that are actually innocent persons that we need to rule out, which

makes it even more difficult.

There is a forensic window, obviously, that we do stand a chance of losing

evidence, but thankfully this is still a very forensically rich scene.

So as soon as those samples are taken, we'll submit those to the lab as a

of urgency.

OK.

We've got to try and find a forensic link between the offender and the

What they've done to that victim is so repulsive and so scary and dangerous

we've got to do everything we can to get him in as soon as possible.

So members of the public have uploaded up to 300 items.

The search for an image of the attacker remains vital.

Stuart has now collected over 200 hours of footage that he needs to scrutinise

for any trace of the man.

Again, it was early hours. The victim was described as a white male with a

head.

I'm looking at multiple cameras, different angles.

Did they use a car?

Did they go by foot?

Were they with somebody else?

These are the sort of things that we need to look at. When it is at night,

images are not always as clear as what we'd hope.

When you look at it, it's bad CCTV.

It's blurry.

It's grainy. It can be very tricky because it doesn't actually show too

We're trying to identify a route that someone has taken.

Stuart focuses on finding anyone out in the early hours of the morning who

matches the description given by the 11 -year -old child.

It's a black -and -white image, but that is a person of interest.

Bald hair, white nail.

Bill. Oh, he's walking down there, which leads to the main road.

OK, there aren't many.

Other opportunities there.

Narrowing his search, Stuart spots a man walk into range of a camera closer to

the victim's home.

So this is one of the petrol garages not too far away.

3 .22 in the morning and there's a figure here. He's crossed the road.

Nobody else is walking the streets at this time at that location.

Just here.

Bald head, small in height.

We've got a different angle.

This one's from behind, he's in colour.

White male, bald head, that's him.

Nick?

I think I've found our person.

OK. See him there?

Yeah. Crossing the road.

That's Petra Barrage. It is, yeah.

He's walking the direction of a train station.

Ah, yeah, right, so these are the train steps.

Yeah. 3 .24am.

That's the same person.

It is an unusual time for somebody to be walking the streets in those early

hours.

We need to show the route to understand his movements before, during

and after.

He's a person of great interest.

However... It's not an offence to be walking around late at night.

It doesn't show the act being carried out.

It's showing circumstantial evidence.

It's not the best picture.

It's quite difficult to make out the colour of the clothings. It's black and

white. It's not clear enough. It's gone quite some distance.

That's really frustrating because we really want to get a good, clear image

their face.

This person disappears moments after that.

We need to identify other footage.

very quickly.

While the quest for a clearer image continues, detectives are still hopeful

forensic evidence gathered from the child's house will reveal the identity

the attacker.

So, from the actual scene itself, this is going into a victim's bedroom.

We don't think that he's actually come any further than the bedroom itself and

nothing to imply that he's gone in there for a burglary because nothing's been

taken. We haven't confirmed that yet.

We can't rule it out. We can't rule it out, no. Right, OK.

So let me just show you.

OK, so we've got some items of clothing.

We think these are the silky pyjama bottoms that were put on by the victim

-incident.

Those silky pyjama bottoms.

or any clothing that she was wearing during or post -incident, basically a

priority as well.

We spoke to Dad, because obviously Dad's given us a statement, so maybe half way

to 4am is when we think the offenders come in and committed the offences.

There was mention on there as well that he produced a knife.

During the examination at the property, we haven't found that knife, but there's

a water bottle, a drinks water bottle.

It had been found in the rear garden.

So we've got the potential of fingerprints on that as well, so we can

into the fingerprint development lab.

Yep, sounds good.

Are we going to be limited with the drinks bottle because it's been outside

obviously the weather's been awful?

It doesn't help, but we always stand a chance of still recovering fingerprint

evidence from that.

Forensics is definitely the most crucial line of inquiry for us as an

investigation team, definitely at this stage.

We are concerned because of the nature of the offence.

You know, it's still out there, we don't know who he is.

There's a lot of pressure on us at the moment. Get the name of the offender.

Get as much evidence as we can to find out who this individual is.

Based on what the victim has told us, we now know that the offender has handled

this water bottle.

So for us, it's priority at the moment to get that examined.

The child's water bottle, which was found discarded in the garden, is fast

-tracked to the fingerprint lab for screening.

What I'm doing initially is light -sourcing the bottle. What I'm looking

latent finger marks.

A juice bottle, a water bottle, there's a lot of traffic.

So you would imagine that you'd get some sort of finger marks on there, whether

it be victim or the suspect.

So this is the UV light. It will fluoresce any finger marks that may be

The water bottles that you get, the refillable ones that are plastic

Although they generally look smooth, the actual surfaces themselves are kind of

like a textured plastic, so don't always yield the best fingerprint evidence for

us.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's enhanced any further finger marks.

Unable to visualise any marks on the bottle, examiner Beverly Worrell turns

superglue chamber in an attempt to enhance it.

will go in here and what the superfluid is to is the amino acids in your

fingerprints, so any sweat components.

So the glue will stick to those and then we'll be able to visualise those under

the white light.

So you can see you've got run marks down the bottle.

That's where the superglue has adhered to what may have been juice on the

outside of the bottle.

It is disappointing when you don't enhance any finger marks.

We're a bit of a crossroads, really.

The water bottle hasn't yielded anything at the moment.

It's worrying that our offender remains unknown.

So CCTV could be key.

CCTV is like a puzzle.

You need to be persistent.

Sometimes I can drive past this particular area where I've carried out

remember something that's happened.

You don't ever forget.

It can be difficult.

knowing what someone's doing or even what they're about to do.

So I've come in this morning and there has been a development.

OK, I think I've got him.

Stuart has received CCTV from a different camera that reveals a new

And that there is going to be our man. And he's walking...

In the direction of the offence location.

Zeroing in on the suspect, he makes a significant discovery.

Strange, he seems to come from a wooded area, so what he's done there, I don't

know.

I don't know why he would go in those woods.

He's said to have a knife, so we need to get some officers to have a look in

that wooded area.

He could have dumped something. He may have changed his clothing.

Is he waiting to pounce on someone right now? Is that what I'm looking at?

Why is he going in this wooded area? That's what we need to find out.

Officers are sent to search the woods for any items that may have been

by the suspect before or after the attack.

The CCTV footage of the suspect coming out has been taken from the camera over

there, which shows him entering this woodland at 3 .30am.

He's in here and then he's popped back out the same entrance at 3 .38.

So he may be coming in here actually to leave things in here.

We haven't been able to recover the knife.

So my hypothesis for there is that it's been taken with the offender when he's

left. Whether he's discarded, then I don't know.

What's that purple thing?

I'm not looking at a full forensic examination of the scene, but I want to

what's there.

Just a bag.

Thank you.

Doesn't look like anything obvious, like a bag or anything, does it?

There is no trace of a knife.

or any further clues as to what the man was doing there.

What I have is pyjama shorts.

They are child size, 11 to 12 years.

While detectives are no closer to identifying the offender, clothing from

child is tested for any bodily fluids or cells which may reveal his DNA.

We've got to consider the possibility of any sort of touch DNA, any cellular DNA

that's been transferred from him to her, but DNA is very sensitive. It will

degrade over a period of time.

There are concerns that we could lose forensic evidence, so nothing's a

guarantee.

There may be a chance of finding the offender's saliva after the child

being licked during the assault.

For saliva, what we're going to do is we're going to wet our amylase paper

infused with starch.

Now I'm going to place it on the item and pat it. So any saliva that is on the

item will be transferred onto the paper.

The saliva can actually stay on clothing a lot longer than actually being

present on skin for, and a lot of it is to do with the texture of material and

fabric. So we're holding out hope that we can still find the offender's DNA

there.

This is iodine working solution.

This reacts with the starch in the paper.

OK, so what we have here is amylase positive areas, which you

can see here.

The area that has reacted positively is then cut out and matched back to the

pyjamas. OK.

I'm going to place this on the item, draw through the holes.

This shows that we have had a positive reaction for saliva in the crotch area

of the victim's pyjama bottoms.

The sample will now be sent to a specialist lab to try and extract DNA

be checked against known offenders.

on the police database.

Got all the CCTV footage from yesterday.

He's just

walking

past.

Okay, so this is 4 .41 in the morning.

And that there is our suspect.

Still looking exactly the same.

New images showing the suspect coming from the direction of the victim's house

could provide the missing link.

That's a cul -de -sac.

He's going to appear. There he is.

And there's not many houses up there, so we now need to try and work out where

that person lives.

And then all of a sudden, all these jigsaw pieces come together momentarily,

split second.

And this, I think, is the breakthrough that we need, because this street's a

-de -sac to the chance that this person lives in that street.

That there is our suspect. That was 323, so that's definitely the same person.

Stuart checks earlier footage and discovers the man leaving a house.

just half an hour before the attack.

Officers immediately head to the house.

They find a man who resembles the person seen on CCTV.

What was your name, pal?

Stephen Jeffery.

Stephen, you're under arrest on suspicion of sexual assault.

I'll caution you that you do not need to say anything, but it may harm your

offence if you do not mention when questioned, something you may later rely

in court.

I should have gone to my charge. I should have went to me if it had.

Just do remind you you're under caution, Stephen, all right? I haven't gone to

my mind anymore and it's just...

Okay.

All right, that's one in custody.

All right, thank you, Popo.

Four days since the sexual assault, the 33 -year -old suspect is brought into

custody.

When we have a suspect that's brought into custody, forensically there's quite

few things that we can try and gain from that, really. For example, the clothing

that the actual offender is wearing.

And also, it's really important for intimate samples to be taken from the

in custody.

So I just need you to hold your penis out as far as you can for me, and I'm

going to swab it.

There is possibly a chance that we could get some sort of DNA evidence from her

on him, based on her account.

OK, that's all done.

You can pull your trousers back up now.

It may have been several days since the incident happened, but even if they've

washed, there could just be a small fragment of evidence there.

Detectives now have 24 hours to find evidence linking the suspect to the

A fingertip search of his house gets underway.

I'm just going to brief you about what we're searching for.

Clothing, the...

The path and the route that we believe the offender's taken is through like a

muddy alleyway and garden, so he's probably going to be caked up in mud.

devices, phones, tablets would be really helpful to the investigation.

We're almost playing catch -up and the suspect has got...

24 hours plus on us and they've had opportunity to think about what they're

going to do after they've committed the offence you know are they going to be

destroying evidence they're going to be hiding things we have a pair of black

trainers um with mud on has any clothing been seized doesn't matter okay so

there's no there's no clothing that matched any any description i think

after so

When we look at his circumstances, he lives with his parents in a normal

home. Looking at him, he could present as just being a normal member of the

public.

In the kitchen, officers also retrieve a small foldable knife.

Matches the description of our victim, yeah. We'll seize that and then that'll

probably be put to the suspect in interview.

So it's a great find. Awesome.

I'll start by thanking everyone for the hard work today.

Our suspect is in custody now.

Will you just give us a little brief of where we are with our victim?

Yeah, so victim and family were updated yesterday in relation to the arrest of

the suspect.

Obviously, mum was understandably emotional.

Mum has stated that her daughter isn't sleeping.

Mum has to sleep in the room with her because she's just petrified, but

hopefully with...

the suspect in custody, it can offer some sort of comfort.

So, let's see what he's got to say, if he can say anything.

It's all counting on this interview really to try and get the suspect to

or disprove their involvement in an offence.

We need to try and place him in that bedroom.

He was arrested for sexual assault of a child under 13 years.

So firstly, are you guilty of that offence?

I've provided my client to answer no comment to all questions during the

interview.

Stephen, obviously you've had your advice off your solicitor.

It is advice, so it is completely your choice. So if you do choose that you

to answer the question, that is your choice, OK?

So I just need to ask you just about some significant comments that were made

after you was arrested.

So at 16 .54 hours, so after you was cautioned, you said, I should have died

when I tried.

It should have worked. I haven't got a mind anymore.

Can you tell me about that, please?

My advice is no comment.

Well, no comment to most.

It's just...

This has got nothing to do with any allegations. This is just him and me.

I should have died.

My advice is no comment to all questions.

That's my advice.

The victim is 11 years old. You have described in detail to Meg.

What's happened to her?

She states that she woke up to a man kneeling next to her.

She said that then you put your hand over her knife. Tell me about that.

She's saying that she was shown a knife and she describes it as it was like a

pocket knife and she was told that she wasn't allowed to tell anybody while

man has said that he will kill everyone in that house.

Tell me about that.

Is that fair that an 11 -year -old child should be scared in their own home?

How does that make you feel?

The suspect is very agitated.

He's fidgeting a lot.

He just looks like that he is hiding something.

Did you use that knife to threaten her?

Was it a pocket knife?

Can you tell me the colour of the pocket knife?

Was it blue?

Do you own a blue pocket knife?

Where did you get the knife from, Stephen?

Stephen?

Stephen?

Stephen, you're going to hurt your head.

Stephen. OK,

Stephen, would you like a break?

Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, you're going to have to stop.

He wants the interview to end and he wants me to stop

asking him the questions so it can just go away.

I do believe that it's incriminating, so I will try and probe as much as

possible to get the truth.

No comment.

He's probably done what we said he would do, admitted it all to his sister.

And then his sister told him to go, no comment.

Because all he's going to do is incriminate himself further, isn't he?

With the suspect refusing to talk and the custody clock ticking, the focus

to searching his phone for anything that connects him to the crime.

We've got specialist software that we can use and we'll take the media from

extraction and place it into it. We can quickly run through and see what's on

the handset.

Digital investigator Jack McCowie manages a full download of data from the

device.

I'm just going through some of the web history here.

And there is 33 ,000 searches on here.

You get such an insight into someone's life looking at their mobile.

You don't just see the crime that's happening in front of you. You see the

person. You see their personality develop and what they've been searching

You can see those silly questions that we all ask or do some shopping online or

whatever.

So I can see he's got Snapchat installed.

Instagram installed, all of these apps you can communicate across.

Was this a targeted sort of crime or was this just by chance?

I want to have a look to see if there's any link to that victim.

Does he have an interest in children?

Can I prove that?

Just going through the media on the device, there's images that are children

the beach.

No one would look at this and go, this is a normal amount to have.

It doesn't know.

It gives you a mindset of that person behind the scenes, and that's exactly

your digital devices do.

He's got them in such quantities.

We found screen recordings which look to be of webcam sessions for adult

content, where the...

Users can chat to the model, and there's a chat here which is saying, Hi, it's

Steve. Can you please show me your belly button? Can you please show me your

belly button up close?

Can you press your belly button and scream belly button?

We've got belly button searches, which then also relate to pornographic

websites.

On the next search, he's searching for children's belly buttons, pornography

which includes belly buttons.

So he's been looking for these images, searching for these terms.

It's quite disturbing searching for people who are sleeping, passed out,

defenseless, sort of those vulnerable people.

The internet is generally just the Wild West.

So people will try and hide their search history. Part of forensics is going

through the additional data, the stuff that sits behind it all.

It's all logged, it's all tracked in the backend, and that's what we view. We're

not viewing it as the user sees it.

So I've just come across my first illegal image.

This is child sexual abuse material, or CSAM.

So we split the illegal material into different categories.

Currently found one Cat B, which is sexual activity with a child, and five

Cs, which is sexual posing as a child.

Age in between the ages of 4 to 10.

It's horrific.

But unfortunately, in terms of this case, there's nothing here that relates

directly to the crime. There's no evidence that he was there or anything

those lines. However, there's the legal files.

There's searches that are starting to look indicative to the crime. And we're

painting this picture of his mindset.

Although there is now enough to charge the suspect with possession of illegal

images... If you just go in that room here to the left.

..there is still no forensic proof that he committed the sexual assault.

Your mobile phone.

I believe that you had this when you were arrested.

Is this your mobile phone?

Yeah. OK.

So, on this mobile phone, there's been extensive...

um sexualized search history around belly button tell me about that

do you um have

a sexual infraction people's belly buttons there's also

searches for sleep attack pornography and also

there was searches for right

And is that something that gets sexual gratification from?

So we've got a map here.

We believe that you have entered and gained access to the back of these

properties. Can you tell me if that is the route you took?

Do you know that area well?

We don't want this offender to be walking out from custody. The whole job

riding on the forensic evidence to prove that he has actually entered that

address and he is the person that actually committed that crime.

In a specialist forensic lab, the complex process of trying to extract DNA

saliva found on the child's pyjama shorts.

is underway but this can take up to

48 hours to complete

with

no guarantee they can extract a full dna profile from the shorts

rachel meets with neil to plan their best next steps

It's pretty disturbing what's been found on his phone, to be fair.

Many, many searches around paralysed or sleeping women.

They're all pretty disturbing, pretty horrific.

So, you know, definitely we've got a sexual interest in children and belly

button fetishes.

Obviously the swabs that were taken from our victim's stomach, if he has sort of

licked around or put his mouth on a stomach area, that's obviously a

submission. So they're in for DNA profiling? Yeah.

Yeah, so hopefully we'll get a result as soon as possible.

We've established that the offender has a fetish about belly buttons.

Because of the sexual nature of the incident, we're looking for any traces

either his saliva or his semen that could be present on the victim herself,

her stomach area.

We're holding out so much hope now that this is going to be the area that's

going to give us the breakthrough.

I have got swabs to examine today.

Forensic samples taken from the victim's stomach area are now prioritised for

testing.

I'm going to be heaving the fibres apart of the swab heads to loosen up any of

the cellular material that is in these swabs.

So next we're going to add the solution.

And then we're going to put this into the centrifuge and we're going to spin

down so that we get a pellet.

The centrifuge separates heavier particles, such as semen, to make it

detect.

So this will contain the cells.

Now what we have to do is stain the stain that we've made.

We're going to use this using Christmas tree staining. It stains any sperm heads

present in the sample a pink colour.

So what we can see

Down the microscope is these little pink heads here are the semen heads.

It's a very good result for us, but we can't automatically assume that we're

going to get a DNA hit from that. It depends on the amount of sperm heads

are left behind, so we won't know until we actually send off the samples from

that to establish whether it gives us a full DNA profile or not.

The sample is urgently sent for DNA analysis to see if it matches the

custody.

I just wanted to give you a phone call. I'll email you over the timeline.

We're just looking for an extension.

His time is up in four hours.

So it will take us half one in the morning.

With the custody clock running out, detectives request a 12 -hour extension

keep the suspect behind bars while they wait for the forensic results.

He might come out with reasonable lines of inquiry that we need to do while he's

in custody. We are looking at going as a red case to CPS.

Yes.

OK, that's fine.

I'll do that now.

All right, thanks, boss. Bye.

There is always that risk that we are going to have to release our suspect

custody, that we can't gather all the evidence within the custody time limit

that we have. That is frustrating if we have to release him.

So we need a real breakthrough, forensically, as soon as possible.

The results of the DNA extraction process on both the saliva and semen

have come through and are fast -tracked for analysis by senior reporter

Charlotte Hargreaves.

In effect, the DNA polypolysis is a string of numbers, but they are known to

differ between individuals.

So we look at 16 areas, and from that sample we obtain the full...

DNA profile.

What you can see is that the major DNA profile, which is all of the very large

pieces of DNA, that indicates that it's from a female and we know that this

profile matches that of the injured party herself.

What we're interested in is these smaller bits of DNA here.

Charlotte compares the DNA profile to find out if it matches to that of the

suspect.

These numbers.

basically comprise this individual's DNA profile.

So this is a number 14, which obviously when I go to the semen profile, that

matches that same number 14.

We've got some smaller areas here, 14, 15, and then a 17, and then a 12 over

here. You come back to this, and you can see that these 14, 15, the 17, they

match. the person whose profile was retained from the semen. It being a

times more likely that the DNA originated from that person rather than

unrelated to them.

Hello, Rachel Hughes, Cribes and Coordinators. Can I help?

Hello. Just give you another update in relation to this case.

OK, yeah.

OK, so comparing it currently to the DNA profile that we've got from the semen

on the stomach swabs. OK, yeah.

And I can see that that profile, you know, does match.

So does the DNA match to the person that we have in custody?

Yes.

We've had some really good news through.

His DNA's been found on the victim, on her clothing.

How can you explain that?

There's no explanation for that. It absolutely confirms that he was the

in this case.

So your semen has been found on the victim's stomach.

How can you account for that?

I believe that the fact may be due to you taking part in

the commission of that event.

I just want the truth.

I know what you've advised, but I have to say one thing.

This is exactly why my mind needs to be shut down. It's not just...

So from what you're saying to me there was that it doesn't matter what

it is, you get sexual gratification?

The final decision on whether to charge the suspect rests with the Crown

Prosecution Service.

Yeah. We've got his semen on her stomach. There's no reasonable

that.

Yeah,

that's perfect.

Just get him charged, yeah. Thank you.

Lovely. Bye.

That's a really good result. That's a fantastic result.

We've got a really strong case now because we've got our offender. His DNA

confirmed. It's a match.

There's nothing better than being able to tell your family that we've caught

him. We've absolutely got him nailed on for this because we've got the

forensics, et cetera, and we've got our victim on board and everything.

The victim throughout this has been so unbelievably brave. She's shown immense

strength in actually telling somebody about what happened given the threats

the suspect made to her family.

It's a really great feeling to know that he's going to get charged with this

horrific offence against this really young girl.

Less than a week after the 11 -year -old child awoke to find an intruder in her

room, her suspected attacker.

is taken to be charged.

So you're charged with following offences.

Knowing or recklessly trespassed on premises with the intention of

relevant sexual offence on those premises.

Your second one intentionally penetrated the vagina of a girl under the age of

13 with a part of your body, namely fingers, and that penetration was

Your next one intentionally touched a girl under the age of 13 and the

was sexual, namely touching and masturbating your penis.

conscious section 8 -1 and 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

So those are the charges they've come back with.

Can I ask you to sign on there to say I've read those charges out to you?

I'm very pleased that we've successfully secured a charge. I think it's an

amazing result that we get a paedophile off the street.

OK, Stephen.

Because of the nature of the offences...

You're not going to be getting bail. You will be staying with us overnight to be

collected in the morning and taken to court.

All right?

Is there any questions you need to ask me?

No. No. OK.

There's no way I don't feel that we could have secured this kind of positive

result against such an individual without the forensic evidence that we've

OK, Stephen, if you want to come with me, OK?

So for us to get him off the streets, a predator like that behind bars, that's

the result we're after.

As a mother, this kind of job does stay with you, unfortunately.

But what it does do, it kind of makes you more aware that we've made a

difference here.

Let's not forget how crucial the victim's been in all of this. She's been

She's provided all those friends examples for us.

She's been so strong in all of this. Your heart just goes out to the victim

her family. So for him to be behind bars is a relief for everyone.

Every contact leaves a trace that forensic experts can follow.

Explore it for yourself with the Open University's new interactive case

simulator.

Scan the QR code on screen or visit