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Jailed for life: rapist stalker who may have attacked 100 women
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent04.06.09
A stalker suspected of attacking nearly 100 women and allowed to roam free by police blunders was jailed for life today with a minimum term of seven and a half years.
Kirk Reid, 44, of Colliers Wood, preyed on women for 12 years in the Balham, Clapham and Tooting area.
A jury at Kingston crown court convicted him of 25 attacks, including two rapes, in March. He also admitted two indecent assaults. But detectives believe he is behind a further 71 attacks on women.
Judge Shani Barnes emphasised he would only be released if and when he was considered to be no longer a danger. She attacked police for neglecting the victims and failing to use modern techniques which would have brought Reid to justice much sooner.
She said the attacks were "utterly degrading, humiliating and terrifying". She told him: "Your behaviour is deeply entrenched within you. It is something very dark and very dangerous.
"From behind you grabbed their [victims'] mouths and noses, pulling them to the ground. Some of them could hardly breathe let alone understand what was happening to them."
The Met was forced to apologise to his victims after it was revealed Reid was not arrested until four years after he became a suspect.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating how police failed to remove him from the streets for so long.
Reid was the second serious sex attacker to slip through the police net. A second inquiry is under way into how taxi driver John Worboys, who drugged and sexually assaulted his passengers, evaded detection.
Officers in Wandsworth identified a repeat sex attacker was on the loose in September 2002 and identified Reid as a suspect in February 2004. But despite him crossing their radar on several occasions he was not held until January last year when Scotland Yard took over. Police believe he preyed on at least 20 more women, many of whom were on their way home from a night out, during the four-year gap.
Most victims were between the ages of 20 and 40 but Reid's youngest was 17 and the eldest 61. He focused on the A24 corridor, the route of the 155 night bus, used by many people heading home from central London.
He waited until his victims walked into quiet side streets before grabbing them from behind.
Reader views (7)
Well we can all sleep easy now, knowing he's going to spend the rest of his life behind bars...errr well, seven and a half years of it anyway.
At least we can sleep easy knowing that when he comes out he'll no longer be a danger to the public...the judge said so.
- Jj, London
Chemical castration is the way you can stop creatures like this
- Jessica, London
I'd go further than Scouser. If the tories do get elected then I hope the will re-introduce the death penalty for crimes such as this.
At the least, this scum bag should face chemical or even surgical castration.
- Adam, Harrow, UK
Oh is this gentleman only exoected to live 7 1/2 years...I thought that life span was increasing. Life, hum ! You British seem to live very short lives...Seven and a half years...I like the half !
- Edouard, Toulouse, France
7 and half years how can that be a life sentence ?
- Stan White, leeds
if the tories do get elected i hope they will put and end whereby our judges who sound tough by giving a criminal a life sentences but then announce that the person could be released in less than 5 years, life as got to start meaning life, we were told when hanging was abolished that it would be replaced with a life sentence that meant life in prison.
- Scouser, liverpool
Another 'Life' sentence? So he'll be out for Christmas then.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
