Bungle delayed arrest of suspect for 10 years
POLICE bungled TWO chances to arrest the man accused of the Night Stalker sex attacks, we can reveal.
Twice they were given leads linking Jehovah's Witness Delroy Grant to the crimes.
But they FAILED to arrest him and took DNA from the WRONG MAN.
The missed oportunities came TEN YEARS ago. Since then the prowler went on to commit more rapes, assaults and burglaries.
Grant first came to the Metropolitan Police's attention in 1999 when a house was burgled in Orpington, Kent, the News of the World has discovered.
Details of the break-in matched the modus operandi of the Night Stalker - telephone cords were cut and the house plunged into darkness.
An eagle-eyed member of the local neighbourhood watch team saw a man get out of a car and acting suspiciously in his street.
He took down the car's registration number and immediately reported it to police. That vital information identified Grant as a suspect.
But incredibly, officers followed up the information by knocking on the door of the WRONG Delroy Grant - another man with the same name living in Dulwich, south east London. His DNA was taken and unsurprisingly eliminated him from the inquiry.
That blunder led directly to the second occasion when the man now accused of an horrific string of attacks on the elderly was allowed to go free.
The same year, an e-fit of the serial rapist being hunted was issued by police. A caller rang Crimestoppers to tell them he thought he recognised the man as someone he had grown up with - Delroy Grant.
Officers working on the investigation, called Operation Minstead, were asked to follow it up.
but shockingly, they checked police records, found that "Delroy Grant" had been eliminated from the inquiry and so never quizzed the man the caller had actually identified.
This week the man police missed was finally accused of a series of rapes and assaults stretching over 17 years.
If convicted, Grant, 52, will prove to be one of the UK's worst ever serial sex attackers.
The huge operation to catch the stalker, during which cops issued a mock-up of the rapist on a motorbike, has cost £10 million. Chiefs at Scotland Yard are demanding to know why the suspect wasn't arrested well before now. A spokesman refused to discuss the failures for legal reasons.
But a police source told us: "There is a course of events that went on in 1999 that are being looked at.
"When you involve humans it will always be open to error. With an investigation that has gone on for as long as this there was always going to be criticism.
"It would be very odd to suggest over the course of a 17-year investigation there were not lessons to be learned. Our focus is on getting closure for the victims."
Grant appeared at Greenwich Magistrates' Court on Thursday charged with 22 separate offences - five rapes, six indecent assaults and 11 burglaries between October 1992 and May this year. The rape victims were all in their 80s and the eldest was 89.
Police are quizzing Jamaican-born Grant about 201 other attacks and detectives say more charges are "likely".
We can reveal that following Grant's arrest, a man and an ex-girlfriend from Leicester have come forward to report that they were both sexually assaulted.
He could also be accused of attacks from victims who have since died. Detectives have interviewed at least six elderly women about the alleged assaults, taking extensive statements and videoing some of them.
It was feared that some of the victims might not be able to give evidence when the Night Stalker came to be caught because of their age.
Officers wanted to have their statements ready in case of a breakthrough and they could now prove crucial.
Police are probing Grant's working life before he became full-time carer to his wife Jennifer, a former classroom assistant he married in 1991.
She is wheelchair bound with multiple sclerosis. They live in a quiet cul-de-sac in Brockley, South-East London.
We can reveal Grant worked as a minicab driver prior to his wife's illness, giving him first-hand knowledge of the elderly living in his area.
He gave up that job and building work to care for Jennifer full time.
Police are also checking whether he might have used his time door knocking locally as a Jehovah's Witness to select alleged victims.
Grant's first wife Janet Watson, who married him in December 1975, said: "Looking back now, it was a horrible time. When Delroy was arrested on Sunday it all came flooding back."
Charges faced by Grant
GRANT was arrested last Sunday by a unit set up to investigate 108 attacks in south-east London and Surrey between October 1992 and May this year.
The five rapes are alleged to have taken place in October 1992, September 1998, July 1999, and twice on 5 August 1999.
Grant is also accused of six indecent assaults, in September 1998, June 1999, two in July 1999, August 1999 and October 2002, plus 11 burglaries between October 1992 and May 2009.
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/61 ... years.html
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I remember 20 years ago the Heathrow crew used to stop us if we were going home empty and flog us a job because £150 to come south was a waste of time, as I remember it, it worked that all they wanted to do was shorties into the city as 5 of those and 75 miles was a better turn around than a 150 mile round trip and feel knackered at the end of it.