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....!

Actually rapists are far more likely to have a previous conviction for burglary.
Am going to have to leave this thread now - have had a shocking day at work and feeling more demoralised than ever. It is appalling that in the 21st century rape is still the issue that it is

Yes definitely. I've been thinking this for ages - mainly since the Raoul Moat case - but haven't been able to put it into words.

It seems all too often the solution to DV is for the woman to get out of the relationship. Which of course is the immediate priority, but after that it seems the man is forgotten. And I can understand not wanting to press charges etc in that fragile state when you have just left, but later, when the anger kicks in, why not?

Friend has just lost a long fight against CAFCASS about her children having access to her violent XH :( they have had to move three times because of him already, including one time when she had just decided to stay and try to find somewhere to live because she said it felt like home here and this was where her heart was. And she had to give that all up and move again :( How the hell is that fair?

Perhaps if men were tried and convicted for DV more regularly, then that would be relected in the conviction stats?

Your poor friend, BB. I was arguing about this on a SS thread the other day. Dittany has really helped me to see that we need to get much more hard-line about this. It makes me even more determined that we need to legalise drugs so that we can free up prison space for violent criminals. Violent men should stop terrorising women and children (and other men in the Delroy Grant case) and the state should back up that belief.

More inappropriate coverage of this story on the BBC, of all places: Grant's referred to in this article as 'stealing sex'. A forensic psychologist is quoted theorising that he simply graduated from burglary, stealing from the homes of the elderly, to stealing sex as well... er yeah, because sex is something you can 'steal' off people like an incidental possession such as a TV or a car...

When are police and criminologists going to admit that rape crimes are almost always about power and control, forcing someone to do something they don't want to do so the rapist can feel in control?? Is it not widely accepted by now that most rapists have control / power issues, not some overwhelming sex drive that sometimes gets out of hand (aren't they real Jack the lads!), making them seek out sex in inappropriate ways?

I really despair sometimes that that public discourse on criminals like this is still so backward. Also agree with AyeRobot - women-only taxis would be a good idea. In Germany, Frauentaxis (women-taxis) are available in most big cities, driven by women for women.

it is weird, I thought people had been saying for years that rape is about power not sex, that it's almost a cliche. And yet it doesn't seem to have been taken on board at all by such a range of people and institutions.

This is an interesting blog post It's about a survey of rapists and could be triggering.

I think seth it's just because people don't believe it. They know it's true in theory but then they see an individual case and attach sex to it rather than power, because that's easier to relate to on some level perhaps? (I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here. I couldn't imagine ever wanting to relate to a rapist. Understanding maybe?)

Also I think power and sex can be intertwined - if someone gets a sexual thrill out of overpowering someone, does that mean it's about sex, or power? Of course it's still about power, the fact it happens to be about sex as well is irrelevant, but some people might not agree.

AyeRobot this is shocking - from your link. If we could eliminate the men who rape again and again and again, a quarter of the violence against women and children would disappear.

Yes, BertieBotts, and it was 4% of the recidivist men who committed a quarter of the violent acts. Rape is not a mistake, as is shown by this case.

I love that article, even if I wish it's existence was not needed. In fact, there's lots of good pieces on that blog.

I thought it said 4% committed 400 acts between them. The sample size was 1882, so that is 75 men.

Yes, but they committed over 1000 acts. This is self-reporting too, which makes it even more shocking to me.

"Lisak & Miller also answered their other question: are rapists responsible for more violence generally? Yes. The surveys covered other violent acts, such as slapping or choking an intimate partner, physically or sexually abusing a child, and sexual assaults other than attempted or completed rapes. In the realm of being partner- and child-beating monsters, the repeat rapists really stood out. These 76 men, just 4% of the sample, were responsible for 28% of the reported violence. The whole sample of almost 1900 men reported just under 4000 violent acts, but this 4% of recidivist rapists results in over 1000 of those violent acts. "

Interesting link AyeRobot and self-reporting. I wonder if they actually used the word rape in the survey if any of them would admit it.

The thing with repeat offenders for rape is like repeat offenders for any type of crime though surely, that the small minority are committing huge numbers of crimes?

There have been leaps forward in trying to protect vulnerable people as a whole. We have just started using body cameras which can be played in court. Had our first DA (domestic abuse) conviction a couple of months ago and the video played was very impactive showing the distress of the victim. Trouble with DA is that by the time they come forward to the police, the victim will have suffered approx 35 incidents of DA.

Crimes where the victim is vulnerable are fast tracked now, certainly where there is a named suspect. There is a robust system for identifying vulnerable victims as soon as they make a report to the police.

Too little too late perhaps for the victims of Grant though.

Interesting to hear your take on it, Sharon...

I understand that in the a city such as London, the police are dealing with a huge number of violent crimes, but even so, as you acknowledged, 17 years....

Interestingly, the bungled investigation into the repeat rapist, Kirk Reid was cleared up in a few days when a new detective who specialised in homicide was put on it. After several years of investigating the rapes (and four years after Reid was first identified as a suspect) the new detective solved it in under a week. Which just goes to show, proper detailed police work (and taking victims' accounts seriously) was what the case needed. As this one clearly did.

Sharon have you seen this thread ? Your input might be very helpful...

I was a journalist when operation minstead was ongoing and did many witness appeals on behalf of the police. I think they were nonplussed. There were very few threads linking the crimes. In 2003 they had eliminated 16,500 men from their enquiries. At that time he wasn't known as The Nightstalker as they were keen not to scare elderly women more than need be.

I'm glad they got him at last.

I was thinking about this and wondering how come Sharon Shoesmith had to resign over the mistakes made by her department in the Baby P case, but it's okay for the police just to say "oh sorry, we messed up here" and there's no outcry.

InMyPrime I too was disgusted that the BBC quoted a psychologist as saying he was "stealing sex". Yeah, rape is on par with having a pair of earring stolen. I couldn't actually believe how offensive that was to the victims.

I heard a few minutes of Jeremy Vine earlier - IIRC he had two experts on who both suggested his relationship with his mother may be to blame.

Now, that's a surprise, Unwind. Always gotta blame women somehow.

Thank goodness the World has gone back to normal. The jury didn't believe the rapists claims that his ex-wife must have fitted him up in a revenge attack but, thankfully, we can now blame his mother.

For a moment there I thought a man might have to take responsibility for his own actions. Phew.

It was on our local news ( london and se news) . Tonight I think its called. Then they interviewed a guy who had followed the mets case. So negligent, it was frightening.