police apology

[Mistyrayn]

Police blunders allowed a 44-year-old chef known as the 'Doorstep Stalker' to carry out a string of sexual attacks on women.

The Metropolitan Police have apologised and an independent investigation is under way after it emerged Kirk Reid, who is also a children's football coach, was not arrested until four years after he was made a suspect.

Fitness freak Reid - the brother of a police officer - has been found guilty of attacking 25 women over a 12-year period, including raping a woman he grabbed on the street in March 2002.

He pounced on his victims as they made their way home from nights out in the Balham, Clapham and Tooting areas of southwest London.

He was also found guilty of an unconnected rape of a woman in a flat in 1995 and was believed to have raped a 17-year-old girl in the early 1980s but the case was dropped.

Police have sent written apologies to at least 20 women, but detectives believe he is a serial sex predator who, in a case following the flawed investigation into 'black cab rapist' John Worboys, is behind at least 71 attacks on women and it is possible he may have carried out hundreds more.

IPCC Commissioner for London Deborah Glass said: 'The fact that Reid was identified as a suspect in 2004 and yet went on to sexually assault more women before he was eventually arrested in 2008 is a real cause for concern.

'The public will understandably ask if some of these attacks could have been prevented and indeed, if the police took the victims as seriously as they should.

'It takes courage for victims of serious sexual offences to come forward and report their ordeal to police.

'That is why they have every right to expect the highest possible level of response. When this does not happen, victims should have confidence that the police will be held to account - and that real change will result.'

Officers in Wandsworth borough identified that a repeat sex attacker was on the loose in September 2002 and identified Reid as a suspect in February 2004 but was not held until January 2008 when Scotland Yard detectives took over the case.

Reid, of Cavendish Road, Mitcham, showed no emotion as he was convicted. He will be sentenced later this year after undergoing psychiatric assessment.

He had denied both rapes, 16 counts of indecent assault, and nine counts of sexual assault. He was cleared of one of the assault charges.

and we are supposed to trust the police