Three senior police officers face the sack after an independent report found that “sustained failures” left a serial sex attacker free to prey on scores of women despite being identified as a key suspect years earlier.
The botched inquiry into dozens of linked sexual assaults in South London between 2001 and 2008 was condemned by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) yesterday as a “shameful chapter in the history of the Metropolitan Police” .
The commission found that the investigation, carried out by a specialist sex crimes unit, was never given the priority or resources it deserved because senior officers were under pressure to meet other targets, including those for robberies and street crime.
When police from the Sapphire Unit did identify Kirk Reid, 44, as a main suspect in 2004 they failed to take basic steps to eliminate him from their inquiries. Officers in Wandsworth borough did not interview him, search his house or take a DNA sample. Instead, they became fixated on another suspect even though his DNA did not match that of the attacker and he was never picked out at an identity parade.
The criticism of the force comes just months after it was strongly censured by the IPCC for missing “golden opportunities” to stop John Worboys, another serial sexual predator, from assaulting the female passengers whom he picked up in his taxi.
Advertisement
A detective superintendent and two detective inspectors involved in the Reid investigation are to face a full powers misconduct hearing, where two senior officers and an independent member will decide what sanctions they should face, including dismissal. This rarely happens, but the failures in the case are said to be so severe that the hearing is warranted.
The IPCC found that the superintendent cleared more than 50 files off his desk in December 2005, telling a more junior officer that he did not want to see them again. The two inspectors were criticised for allegedly failing to act on a 2004 report identifying Reid and for allocating insufficient resources to the inquiry.
Reid was caught in 2008, four years after being tagged as a prime suspect. He was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court in March last year of 26 offences, including two rapes, but police believe that he is responsible for 70 more attacks, at least 30 of which took place after he should have been arrested. He was given a life sentence.
Reid’s name was first put into the system in December 2002 when he was stopped by police who suspected that he intended to rob a woman. In January 2004, a witness dialled 999 to report that a man in a VW Golf had assaulted a woman and the registration number was traced to Reid. A month later a junior officer warned that Reid could be the attacker after she saw him sounding his car horn at a woman and linked his name to the other incidents.
He was now one of three prime suspects, and surveillance was carried out at his house in March 2004, but because of “technical problems” a camera trained on the property worked for only seven days. No surveillance was carried out for a further 17 days because of “holiday commitments”. Reid continued to attack women and in November that year senior officers reviewed the crimes — but his name had by then fallen off their list of suspects. In 2006 it was noticed that officers had no DNA for three of their eleven suspects, including Reid, so two officers were assigned to get samples. One was reassigned while the other took a career break.
Advertisement
The IPCC noted: “The operation was effectively left with no one actively working on it.” Reid was caught in January 2008 when the Homicide and Serious Crime Command took charge, obtaining his DNA and arresting him within days.