NIGHT Stalker rapist Delroy Grant was free to terrorise dozens of elderly women after detectives let him slip through their grasp.
Blundering police eliminated Grant from their investigation in 1999 – 10 years before he was finally captured.
In that time the Jehovah’s Witness committed at least 146 more burglaries, three rapes and 20 sex attacks. Officers suspect he committed many more.
Grant – who had a string of previous convictions – was flagged up as a suspect by police hunting the predator who assaulted OAPs across South London.
But officers from the £10million Operation Minstead inquiry confused him with a man of the same name whose DNA did not match crime scene samples.
The error meant Grant was ruled out as a suspect. A detective went to the dad-of-10’s home but did not question him because he was not there.
Grant, 53, is now suspected of up to 1,000 burglaries and 100 sex attacks on men and women aged between 68 and 93 during a 17-year reign of terror.
The Mirror can reveal how cops made a string of horrendous mistakes that allowed the Night Stalker to evade capture.
Errors included missing a breakthrough when a man told Crimestoppers that Grant could be the attacker.
Police also overlooked a tip from a victim that the predator may have worked at the minicab firm which employed him. Officers listened to psychological profilers who wrongly claimed the rapist could be a respected member of the community with a professional job.
And police chased a red herring that he was from Trinidad and Tobago – when he was actually born in Jamaica more than 1,000 miles away.
Operation Minstead was also starved of resources during lulls in attacks.
Grant was convicted yesterday of a string of burglaries and sex assaults in an area stretching between Orpington in Kent and Warlingham in Surrey.
SORRY
Speaking outside Woolwich crown court Met police Commander Simon Foy apologised for not catching him earlier.
He said: “In 1999 there was an opportunity to have identified the offender as Grant but that opportunity was missed.
“It is entirely appropriate the Met now apologise for this missed opportunity that led to his continued offending for so long.
“We are deeply sorry for the harm suffered by all those other victims by the failure to bring Grant to justice earlier.” Police realised within hours of arresting Grant in 2009 that he was already in their system after being linked to a burglary in Bromley, Kent, in 1999.
The break-in featured many of the 23 characteristics of the Night Stalker but the initial inquiry was carried out by a temporary detective at Bromley CID.
A Neighbourhood Watch organiser had seen a black man get out of a grey BMW 5 series, put on gloves and walk towards the house that was burgled.
The officer checked the DVLA database and found the car was registered to Grant at his home in Honor Oak, South London.
The detective searched the Police National Computer and found six men of the same name who had criminal records.
One of them, a man in his 20s, was also flagged up on the Met’s database.
A report featuring Grant and the younger man was sent to Operation Minstead.
But detectives there mistakenly believed there was only ONE suspect – even though the men had different middle names.
Officers found a DNA profile of the younger Delroy Grant and correctly noted it did not match the Night Stalker.
Catastrophically, they logged that the man who turned out to be carrying out the attacks had been eliminated by DNA. A Minstead detective visited his address “as a favour” to Bromley police, who were supposed to pursue the inquiry into the unsolved burglary.
Grant was out and the officer spoke to wife Jennifer. The information was passed to the CID officer but it was never pursued because bosses believed Minstead was still in charge of the inquiry.
EVIDENCE
The Independent Police Complaints Commission found nobody ever interviewed the witness or the victim.
If there had been enough evidence to charge Grant with the burglary, his DNA would have been taken and automatically matched to the Night Stalker crimes.
Two detective constables have received “words of advice” following the IPCC investigation into the errors. Commissioner Deborah Glass said: “It is clear a simple misunderstanding had horrific consequences. Police missed the opportunity because confusion led to the wrong man’s DNA being compared.”
In March 2001 a man rang Crimestoppers after watching a documentary about the Night Stalker and named a “Delroy Grant” who had lived in a children’s home.
But the line of inquiry was dropped because a fire had destroyed the home’s records and there was a DNA elimination code against that name.
Officers also wasted time and £150,000 on a controversial DNA “sweep” of 3,000 black men. For a while detectives even blamed the lack of an arrest on the possibility the Night Stalker was a policeman.
Grant would usually crowbar his way into homes by exploiting a flaw in early double glazing. He then removed a pane of kitchen glass and once inside would cut off the telephones and electricity supply, then remove fuses and lightbulbs.
Grant, who disguised himself in a blue cagoule and a balaclava, shone a torch in victims’ faces and demanded sex.
He spent up to four hours talking to the women or walking them around but fled if they shouted at him.
When Grant became aware he could be identified by DNA he began washing victims’ hands and clothes after his assault. He also wore two pairs of pants and several layers of jeans and jumpers.
Often he warned victims not to tell the police, before chillingly telling them: “I could always come back.”
Jon Clements, Daily Mirror 25/03/2011
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