Failure to catch rapist Kirk Reid 'a Lawrence moment', says chief

Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who is the Association of Chief Police Officers' head of strategy for sex inquiries, said police had to re-invent rape investigation in the wake of a series of blunders.

He said the failures had led to a "Lawrence moment" in the investigation of sex offences. The Lawrence inquiry marked a watershed in how police tackle race crime.

Mr Yates spoke out after Reid, 44, a chef, was convicted yesterday of two rapes and 25 indecent assaults on women in south London. Police have linked him to at least 71 attacks and fear he may have carried out hundreds more.

However, Scotland Yard was forced to apologise to his victims after it emerged that police missed a dozen clues to catch him, allowing the football referee free to continue sex assaults.

Officers from the same squad also blundered in the case of black cab rapist John Worboys and another inquiry into the rape of a 15-year-old girl.

One of Reid's victims said today it was "beyond belief" why police did not catch him earlier. Candice Marsh, 30, who was left with Reid's DNA in her fingernails after he attacked her in December 2001, said: "I can't get my head around why they didn't take DNA from him."

Today Mr Yates, who has now taken charge of Scotland Yard's investigation of sex attacks, said though many rape cases were dealt with effectively "no chief constable can be confident that every case is dealt with in this way".

Mr Yates, writing in The Guardian, said: "My concern remains that in a range of heavy and competing priorities, rape cases do not get the attention they deserve. Some forces are doing exceptional things. But I know this is not the case everywhere.

"This must change. Rape investigation requires specially trained detectives to properly and thoroughly investigate cases where corroborative evidence is often difficult to find.

"We need leadership, particularly at the most senior level, to grip this issue. We need to reinvent our response as we did in relation to homicide after the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence."

Police failures in the Reid case are being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.