All in and around the Surrey and South-East of London when many of his
victims noticed how softly spoken he was and how obsessively he seemed to cover
up his mouth the reasons why we only become clear once he was in custody
Matthew has this exclusive story of how police finally caught the Night Stalker
For nearly two decades this man terrorized the elderly residents of
South East London silently breaking into their homes to
rob and sexually assault them in terrifying attacks that could last for hours
The media named him The Nightstalker that That is very simply because of late at night
he would be creeping around the houses and back gardens of homes in southeast
London and breaking into those occupied by single elderly people What followed
would become one of the largest and most controversial investigations this
country has ever seen but it would take 17 years of grueling
detective work before they finally caught their man. He was Delroy Grant, a married
father of 10, who last week was found guilty of 29 counts of indecently
assaulting, raping and robbing pensioners The actual number of victims is thought
to be much higher. We have 203 offences linked by the time
of his arrest but the truth is there are probably more victims who firstly never
came forward and secondly if they did they would not always tell us the full
extent of the crimes they suffered This is the story of how detectives unmasked
Britain's most prolific sex attacker and finally caught the Night Stalker
I became the senior investigating officer or SIO in 2001. The first
impressions were quite daunting but the time I arrived there were 73 offences
already linked by a variety of methods all the offences that we're talking
about are in the distinct areas of South East London and just over the border
into Surrey. The Nightstalker had first come on to the police's radar in 1992
when he brutally raped an 89 year old woman at her home in Shirley in southeast
London DNA was recovered from the scene but no match was found on the national
DNA database then six years later he struck again attempting to rape another
elderly woman this time in wallingham in Surrey just seven miles from his first
attack DNA from the second assault confirmed that police had a serial
sexual predator on their hands the special investigation was set up called
Operation mince dead his Mo was extremely unique it was almost like his
signature he would attack the house normally by removing a window in one
piece very careful and meticulous in this approach once inside or just
outside he would target in electricity by turning it off at the mains and
removing fuses he would cut the telephone wire he would then go around
the house unscrewing light bulbs and eventually and quite unlike most
burglars he would then go and interact with the elderly victim
the victims would only realize there was someone in their home when they were
woken in their beds by a blinding torch shining in their faces they were then
put through terrifying ordeals which could last for several hours
we found the potential beating that was sleeping during the day so that they
could stay awake at night and be aware and respond to any noise that they fear
it may be for someone to prey on the elderly and for them not to have decent
comfort in the latter years of their life just a rimless the first challenge
detectives faced was to identify potential suspects if I put you in the
position of a victim you're in your 80s and you're in your bed you're safe and
you're walking in the middle of the night by a hand of your men and
immediately there will be a demand for sex you reach for the light to turn to
turn it on and nothing happens because he's already deciding the electrics he
shines a torch in your eyes and he's wearing a balaclava you're petrified and
I'm gonna ask you now describing to me it's impossible you just call with only
a vague description of a black male aged between 35 and 45 from southeast London
to go on detectives called on behavioral profilers to help piece together a
picture of who this man could be the way he behaved inside the victims homes was
very revealing it was clear he had experience with the elderly from the way
he's supported and lifted his victims leading profilers to believe he'd worked
as a carer for in an elderly care home and in order to creep about without
arousing suspicion it was suggested he worked at night and there was something
else that was bothering detective Superintendent Morgan the lengths this
man was going to to hide his face for me it was a potential that there was
something different about his face something of
readily identifiable about his facial features the problem was we didn't know
exactly what that was by 1999 the frequency and severity of the attacks
had escalated in August of that year he carried out his most violent attack yet
raping an 89 year old woman twice the assault was so brutal the
victim was left fighting for her life
it's very impactive it's very sad and you know we need it no more motivation
to find this man but police was still struggling to narrow down their pool of
16 thousand potential suspects so they turned to the public for help a massive
investigation has been launched by police in London to catch a man
responsible for a series of sex attacks on elderly women the appeal had
unexpected results they stopped him as as simple as that he followed the press
and what was being said about him and he would stop offending and for 3 years it
worked but in 2002 he surfaced again indecently assaulting an elderly woman
in the same area of london where he'd attacked his first victim ten years
earlier so instead of another appeal a large scale surveillance operation was
set up involving over a hundred police officers
surveillance teams waited for the attacker to walk into their trap
during the sixth week of the operation the violent burglary took place which
bore all the hallmarks of having been committed by the Night Stalker but
frustratingly for police it was a mile outside of their surveillance cordon
absolutely devastating we've invested an immense amount of products and resources
to covering a favored area and he switches to an area that he'd never been
at before but detectives were undeterred the one thing we know that we definitely
had a hundred percent was this man's DNA so we approached this with a view to
keeping up with the developing world of science in 2003 another metropolitan
police investigation that used a pioneering scientific technique called
ancestral DNA profiling to identify the ethnicity of a headless torso which been
found floating in the River Thames if they could apply the same technique
to the night stalkers DNA they would have a far more accurate picture for
this ethnic background the DNA samples were sent to America where scientists
got to work two weeks later they had a result what
it told us from the analysis of his DNA is that his ancestry is from the
Caribbean now this enabled us to rule out anyone
that was solely of African ancestry or anyone who had a white parent or
grandparent within just a few weeks the number of potential suspects had been
drastically reduced the fact that we removed several thousand literally
overnight really boosted morale we really thought we were getting closer to
him by 2007 detectives could see that the offender's behavior was changing the
motivation appeared to be mainly for money it was clear that the level of
precautions that he had been taking in the planning of the offences was
reducing he was becoming breeding once again surveillance teams were set
up all over Shirley in southeast London then on the 29th of October 2009 the man
matching the offender's description was caught on CCTV running to a car from the
scene of a nearby burglary I look to the picture and you could
barely make a blurry image of a vehicle it meant nothing to me
so we engaged a expert who immediately told us the make and model of the
vehicle it was a Vauxhall Zafira beam model 2005 to 2009 after nearly two
decades they felt they were closer than ever to finally catching the culprit 17
days later on a cold November night one of the surveillance teams noticed a
similar Vauxhall Zafira parked on a residential Road in Shirley we have a
gray box of severa parts in the road then an hour later the man was spotted
running to the car
officers sprung into action
I received a phone call two in the morning to tell me that we'd finally
apprehended the men that I'd personally been waiting eight years to meet that
man was 52 year old married father of 10 Delroy grant at the station and Ron
denied all knowledge of his crimes speaking only to confirm his personal
details tell us your first name please but
detectives were confident they had their man he matched very accurately what we
thought we know about him he is a primary carer for his disabled wife who
has multiple cirrhosis he has a history of working in old
people's homes we know that he was out working at night often as a mini cab
driver
his family and friends that we've spoken to are absolutely shocked that this is
him he was outwardly mr. ordinary he clearly lived two lives and he kept his
two lives separate nobody know he was the man that was out raping the elderly
and there was more I went straight into work and went down to the custody swing
to maton clearly I've waited a long time for that moment I also wanted to know
what was the reason why he'd taken such precaution to hide his face from the
victims he has no front teeth and he doesn't wear dentures and that would
have been something that if a victim that noted we would have probably and
highly likely caught in law earlier samples of grants DNA were taken and
rushed to the forensic science service for analysis eight hours later detective
Superintendent Morgan got the call excellent Thanks
he was a one-in-a-billion match it was him
this month grants to trial at will its Crown Court despite the overwhelming
evidence against him he pleaded not guilty his defense in court was his wife
from the 1970s had stalled various samples of his body fluids and over the
subsequent 31 year period out of malice had deposited them the sins of crime
quite frankly a ludicrous defense and if it wasn't so sad it would be laughable
the jury found grant guilty of all charges he was given a life sentence in
order to serve a minimum of 27 years personally I waited 10 years for this
verdict
for years many of his victims all they wanted to know was who was he and why
did he attack them
sadly most of them have gone to their graves not knowing the answers to those
questions his victims have shown courage and strength when faced with the most
frightening of situations these are traits that Delaware cron does not
possess he is now rightly where he belongs
these were frail pensioners often blind or deaf with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's
that he deliberately targeted the judge told him your utter depravity knows no
bounds left a trail of distress fear and misery from Delroy grant no explanation
absolutely no remorse quite the opposite you heard their defense man's ex-wife I
mean it's preposterous and there's no turbo so you should have
been caught earlier yes in 1999 he was spotted acting suspiciously near one of
the burglaries someone phoned in his car registration and that gave police a name
Delroy grant but they investigated the wrong door gone they took his DNA it
didn't match him so that name was ruled out of the police inquiries they did go
round to the right Dale Grant's house he was out and they didn't go back the
Independent Police Complaints Commission described it as a simple
misunderstanding that had horrific consequences because wrong committed at
least another 146 attacks and after the trial
police publicly apologized for that mistake more than a massive police
operation in terms of the logistics of at the span of it it was massive with
some blind alleys as well like whether he's a motorbike to get to the crimes
the police put out this efis at the time but in the end it was a return to that
strategy of focusing on the robberies that was the absolute key when the court
grant his car was packed with all of the paraphernalia for the break-ins which
had spiked in 2008 because he'd gone into severe financial difficulties and
so they reset that surveillance trap and how it'd be right possibly hundreds more
victims briefly yeah 203 linked to him the police say it will be more one woman
told police that her mum had the police about the burglary but just
couldn't bring herself to say that she'd been raped as well she died before grant
was caught and tragically certainly the victims did I mean from beginning to end
this is a horrific story with any one redeeming feature that he's been caught
and probably will never get out of