Seventeen years it took to stop this rapist....

[InmaculadaConcepcion]

The so-called "Night stalker".

I'm sickened that he continued attacking women for so long before they finally caught him.

Sky's report here

And he tried to blame the attacks on his own son and his wife....!

Yep. Another catalogue of police cock-ups.

I second dittany. A very special variety of hell should most definitely be reserved for this man.

I can think of an answer to that question....

But yes, well-spotted SF.... WTF indeed.

agree stay frosty.

implying that he would only have wanted to rape young attractive women.
i have no words for the cock ups that allowed him to carry on.

He attacked old men as well.

I hope he burns in hell or at least gets a good kicking in prison.

Any kind of understanding of rapists surely must be that they are a special kind of bully, they want to target people who are physically weaker than they are. So of course elderly people are vulnerable. Of course they are. We need to recognise that rape is not about sex, it's about violence.

And there isn't a hell so it might be nice if the prison officers are looking the other way when someone attacks him with a sharpened spoon. I am not much of a one for violence but I've never managed to feel hugely sorry for Peter Sutcliffe for example, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy in fact.

The Evening Standard version talks about no one understanding what provoked his sexual attraction to elderly people and speculates on a sexual encounter with an older woman at an impressionable age.

Yes, because violent burglary and rape is about sexual attraction

I don't like the way the media have given him a vaguely glamorous name - The Night Stalker FFS. Disgusting Pervert would have been far more apt.

Yet again the police have been useless.

This is horrendous - these poor women and men (shows its the power not the sexual act though)
The lady who was terrified after it and wanted him to be caught before she died

I feel ashamed as a police officer that these victims have been failed in such a spectacular manner. For a commander to say he is sorry in public is just not enough. As part of a huge investigation such as this there would have been thousands of men interviewed over the years and attention to detail is crucial.

I do actually think that he got away with it for so long because he was targetting elderly people. They seem to be invisible in our society.

It was quite ridiculous the way that he tried to say his ex had framed him, too - nobody would believe that excuse for a minute.

TheCrackFox - very different to other cultures isn't it. In a lot of other cultures they are revered but as you say in our society they are invisible or derided a lot of the time.

Father of 10 as well plus he tried to blame his wife and son for the rapes. I hope he will admit to what he has done for the sakes of all his victims - they will always be wondering if it was him and like the lady who died maybe if they know it was him and he is in prison they may sleep safe in their beds :(

we need to recognize that rape is not about sex, it's about power

I think that is debatable

But I agree that this rapist is a sadistic monster

And the police incredibly bumbling

They show their true collies in terms of their priorities in a case like this

I remember the appeals on Crimewatch about this going back years. Isn't he the one that removed the windows? I can still see one of the really early recostructions in my mind. Those poor victims.

And another mini-cab driver. Like the one arrested in Swindon. Not that it would have made a difference in this case, but it's time women stepped up the demand for women taxi-drivers. We should request one every time we book a taxi.

Greythorne - what do you mean true collies?
I don't know anything about this particular operation but bearing in mind it spanned years I would imagine there was a huge amount of police resources have been put into it.

Give the police a break. London is a violent city, and methinks we watch too many detective shows on the TV.

The guy's been caught. End of.

Sorry
iPhone
I meant "true colours"

And by that I mean they allocate low priority to crimes against women, old people.

I don't ever watch the news but I keep seeing bits about this. It's just awful. The way he disconnected all the phones and the lights first, it's chilling.

I saw a video of him on the news a few days ago going on about his wife and how she "framed" him - he said something like "Yeah well she didn't like the violence and the other women, so she wanted to get back at me."

Why is DV still taken so un-seriously? People who do these kinds of things always seem to have DV somewhere in their history.

I saw another video today - one of the ladies' carers, saying "Really, it ruined her whole life." Of course it did, I can't imagine anything much worse :(

BB, that's another good reason why DV should be taken much more seriously than it is. If more men got locked up for it, the less time they are out committing more DV and other crimes. DV in these kind of cases seems to be seen like alcohol and fag overuse is for heroin addicts - a side issue, when it is actually a symptom of a fundamental problem. (does that even make sense written down? It did in my head)

exactly AyeRobot.
there is always a history of DV when a rapist/serial killer is caught.

when they arrested the landlord of that poor woman in Bristol who was murdered, after a few days it started to seem very odd that no-one had come out of the woodwork to say 'I was his ex-girlfriend and he was violent to me', because that is so often what seems to happen. And then not surprisingly it turned out they'd got the wrong man.