MPS criticised over Night Stalker failures

An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation has found that confusion over a suspect and a poor response to a burglary led to the failure to arrest a serial sex attacker sooner, who was today (March 24) convicted of sex attacks and burglaries across south London over a period of 17 years.

The IPCC began an independent investigation in December 2009 after the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) referred concerns that the convicted man, Delroy Easton Grant, also known as The Night Stalker, should have been arrested earlier for these offences. The offences are also known as the Minstead offences.

The investigation found that a crime report from a borough burglary team included information about two different men with similar names, which led to the Operation Minstead team checking the DNA sample of the wrong man against the offender profile. This mistake then contributed to a number of basic investigation enquiries not being done by either team of detectives.
 
The IPCC found a case to answer for misconduct for three officers as a result of the investigation. In May 1999 the officers were a Temporary Detective Constable and a Detective Sergeant with Bromley Borough and a Detective Constable with Operation Minstead.

Deborah Glass, IPCC Commissioner for London, said: “Delroy Grant`s terrible crimes targeted some of society`s most vulnerable individuals leaving them and their loved ones heavily traumatised.
 
“The IPCC investigated the police’s response to one crime linked to Operation Minstead in 1999. It is clear that a simple misunderstanding had horrific consequences. Police missed the opportunity because confusion led to the wrong man’s DNA being compared.
 
“This mistake set off a chain of events that was compounded by poor communications between, and within, the two teams meaning that basic enquiries, such as arresting Grant and searching his property, were not done. Had an officer from either team done this then Grant may have been charged for the Bromley burglary, leading to his DNA being matched to the Minstead crimes.”

In late May 1999 MPS officers in Bromley responded to a burglary at the home of an elderly woman. Sometime between midnight and 6.25am an air vent was removed and the offender gained entry to the home and stole property. The woman was asleep at the time and was not woken. The offence was reported to police at 6.25am and after an examination of the scene no forensic leads were identified.
 
Three days later a member of the public told the police a man had been seen putting on a balaclava and gloves before heading to a house. The registration of the BMW car the man drove was also passed onto officers.
 
On receipt of the information officers from Bromley Borough’s burglary team conducted initial checks and identified that the car was registered to Delroy Easton Grant of SE4 and his wife. A search of police databases identified a number of men with a similar name nationwide, including one in London. Delroy Easton Grant was not on the database though.
 
Given some of the characteristics of the incident, Bromley Borough’s burglary team contacted the Operation Minstead investigation team to inform them of a possible linked crime. The crime report included details of Delroy Easton Grant and the similarly named person in London.
 
The crime report resulted in the Operation Minstead team creating a suspect profile, reference ‘N253’, using the details of the similarly named man who already had a DNA profile available to the police. A Detective Constable on Operation Minstead was then tasked to “Trace Implicate Eliminate N253 as Minstead suspect and establish if he is the owner of BMW…”.

The IPCC investigation checked ‘electronic footprints’ on the CRIS system from when people accessed the report. The Bromley borough Temporary DC, who made initial contact with the Operation Minstead team and retained lead officer responsibility for borough enquir