LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) — A London jury today convicted one of Britain's most notorious serial rapists, who preyed on the elderly for nearly two decades and may have assaulted scores of victims.
The jury at Woolwich Crown Court found Jamaican-born Delroy Grant — dubbed the 'Night Stalker' — guilty of 29 counts of attacks on 18 elderly men and women between 1992 and 2009.
Police say the number of Grant's victims is thought to be substantially more than that. Officers have looked into 203 offences as part of the investigation.
Judge Peter Rook called the offences "of the utmost gravity" and said Grant could be handed a life sentence on Friday.
Grant stood motionless in the dock with his head bowed as the foreman of the jury delivered the verdicts. An elderly victim and several relatives looked on and smiled from the public gallery.
Police called Grant's offences some of the most "awful and disturbing crimes" Scotland Yard has ever investigated and the prosecution in the case called the attacks "the stuff of nightmares."
The attacker broke into homes, cut phone lines and crept into the bedrooms of his elderly victims during ordeals that lasted for hours. The victims were mostly elderly women; many were blind, deaf or had conditions including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
The 53-year-old Grant, a former cab driver and home-care aide to his second wife, was arrested in 2009 following one of Britain's longest running manhunts, codenamed Operation Minstead.
The Metropolitan Police task force formed Minstead — a randomly generated name — in 1998 to find the man.
After a series of interviews with victims in southeast London over the years, a pattern began emerging.
The telephone lines of the victims' homes were often disabled, and fuse boxes tampered with. Some described a person in a mask, waking them up by shining a flashlight in their faces.
More than 2,000 DNA samples were collected as part of the investigation, and in 2006, detectives travelled to Trinidad and Barbados after testing suggested the attacker might have Caribbean ancestry.
Branding Grant a "perverted, callous and violent individual," the head of the Metropolitan Police's homicide and serious crime unit said Friday his arrest and conviction allowed thousands of people in London to "go to sleep without the dreadful thought they would be preyed upon."
Still, Britain's police watchdog apologised for missed opportunities to catch Grant, saying the hunt to catch him was undermined by "basic policing errors."
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said a poor response to a burglary and confusion over a suspect — which saw the wrong man's DNA studied — prevented arresting Grant sooner.
"It is clear that a simple misunderstanding had horrific consequences," said Deborah Glass, the watchdog's commissioner for London.
Andrew Hadik, a senior lawyer with the Crown Prosecution Service, said the motive for Grant's crimes might never be known, because he had "steadfastly refused to admit any responsibility or to show any remorse."
At the time of his arrest, Grant said that police should not bother taking his fingerprints because he "always wore gloves."
ENDS
The Telegraph in the meantime covers the issue:
Warm, charming and always friendly he was apparently a devoted carer to his wife Jennifer, who was paralysed as a result of multiple sclerosis.
He followed cricket, liked to fish and enjoyed community barbeques where he would share jokes and reminisce about his childhood in Jamaica.
But today that respectable image lies in tatters after he was convicted of being the notorious Night Stalker - one of the most prolific sex offenders of modern times.
For almost two decades Grant stalked the streets of south London at night burgling, raping and sexually assaulting the elderly.
He is known to have attacked more than 200 times, but police fear the toll could be much higher as many of his victims were simply to ashamed to come forward. (click linked names above for full article)
(UPDATE March 25th):
A reader left this interesting comment in the initial post here as was headlined "Jamaica Born Bisexual ............" I have since renamed it removing the bisexual link, I am aware that you my readers are on target and can spot the infractions without my prodding ... yeaahhhh! keep the vigilance up and thanks for keeping me on my toes as well
The comment was as follows:
"Hey, I am a frequent reader of this blog but this is my first comment.
Again I see where J'can news is trying to spread ill of the LGBTQ community. The Observers news report is the only one that stated that Grant is "bisexual". No other news report stated that. The other reports payed more attention to the fact that he was a Jehovahs Witness & not one of them said a BISEXUAL Jehovahs Witness.
The closest thing Grant would be called is a gerontophile. He raped and sexually assaulted ELDERLY people. He preyed on the ELDERLY and took advantage of their fragility. Yes, some of his victims were male but there was no gender motivation. Additionally, all his victims were white but there aren't any reports that state he was a RACIST. Why? Because race wasn't his motivator. Grant was looking for EASY victims and elderly people were most vulnerable."
Again I see where J'can news is trying to spread ill of the LGBTQ community. The Observers news report is the only one that stated that Grant is "bisexual". No other news report stated that. The other reports payed more attention to the fact that he was a Jehovahs Witness & not one of them said a BISEXUAL Jehovahs Witness.
The closest thing Grant would be called is a gerontophile. He raped and sexually assaulted ELDERLY people. He preyed on the ELDERLY and took advantage of their fragility. Yes, some of his victims were male but there was no gender motivation. Additionally, all his victims were white but there aren't any reports that state he was a RACIST. Why? Because race wasn't his motivator. Grant was looking for EASY victims and elderly people were most vulnerable."
ENDS
Interestingly it was the Jamaica Observer who used the Bisexual line in their lead story for this case probably it worked in a sense as if it were headlined to hint to homosexual then it would unearthed other kinds of reactions to which we are accustomed, the paper has been also coming for some criticim following a previous story where the word "homo" was used in the headline:
Appeared on March 21st in the online edition of course using such words if it were overseas heads would have probably rolled for it but such is the seeming immaturity or bias of our local media which are used sometimes to sell papers, lgbt stigmatised sensationalist tones even from so called respectable media houses are not uncommon.
Peace and tolerance
H
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