'For these girls, it's worse than murder'
Eye witness: On the trail of a serial rapist
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A year ago a little girl was raped. A man put his hand over her mouth as she stood outside a youth club on the outskirts of Ashford, Kent, and dragged her into the shadows. He wasn't called the "trophy" rapist then, or the "railway" rapist, or the "M25" rapist, or any of the other names the press have come up with since. He had not raped anyone before that night, as far as the police know – and for six months it seemed as if the 10-year-old in Ashford would be his only victim.
"She went back to school after Christmas," says WDC Josie Smith, the family liaison officer assigned to work with the girl and her parents. "The attack was devastating but they wanted to get some kind of normality back. She was just beginning to get on with life a bit."
Then, in the summer, there was another rape: a 12-year-old girl cycling home through Bracknell in Berkshire in daylight, at 6.30pm on 1 July. Ten days later two women were raped within six hours of each other: a 30-year-old on a footpath in Earlswood, Surrey, and a 26-year-old in woodland on Putney Heath. The attacker used the latter's mobile phone to tell her mother, "I've just raped your daughter."
The police confirmed they were now looking for a serial attacker, and he struck again – on 16 July in Woking, Surrey, then 6 August on Wimbledon Common, and the day after that in Epsom, Surrey. The victims were aged 18, 52 and 26. The attacks took place in wooded areas surprisingly close to roads and buildings, in daylight. On 6 September he raped a 13-year-old girl in Woking.
The rapist was now on the front pages. There were appeals for information on Crimewatch and in the news. Inevitably, the little girl in Ashford saw some of the coverage. "It set the victim back," says WDC Smith. "She has been exhibiting signs of distress: she doesn't want to go to bed on her own. When she does, she can't sleep, and she can't stand the dark. It has really hit her hard. The attack was devastating and this has brought a lot of memories back. Until he's caught she is stuck in limbo."
Somebody has cleared a wide way through the dark copse where the rape took place, and the trees have been cut back. A fence has been put around the play area at the Nelson pub nearby. "I haven't let my little girl out of my sight," says Dean Wilson, the landlord, father of a five-year-old. Familiar places now seem sinister. "Everywhere you go things seemed to have changed. People are much more wary about letting their kids play outside."
The Ray Allen Centre for Childcare and Education is still in use by the youth club, a low, boxy building with peeling white paint. Neon strip lights are visible through drawn blinds. Tina Cook takes her children there but stays with them all the time. "I wish they would catch him because I don't want to go out at the moment. You start looking around and thinking, 'Is that him?' It's an awful way to feel in your own community."
Until 15 November last year parents and children in Ashford had no more reason to be afraid than anyone else. Now they cannot quite believe the detectives who say the rapist probably does not live in their town or any of the other ordinary places where he has struck, apparently at random. "That makes it even more distressing," says WDC Smith. "You presume these things happen in remote, secluded areas, but that's not the case."
On a wet Friday afternoon it takes four hours to drive around the M25 from Ashford to Stevenage in Hertfordshire, where the 10th rape took place. Police officers in fluorescent jackets stamp their feet against the cold at either end of the lane that runs alongside Collenswood school, and ask if I was there on 25 October, at about 5.30pm. The attacker is described as between 40 and 60, with short brown and grey hair, no taller than 5ft 9in and of medium to stocky build. He is thought to be a smoker, carrying a green tobacco pouch. There is no mention of a Geordie accent this time, unlike in the other cases.
The similarities between the scenes of the first and 10th attacks are striking: both are small, tree-lined corners wedged between schools and housing estates, close to roads busy with buses that take you to the railway station.
Something else bothers me: both feature semi-permanent metal fences, of similar design, that look as if they've been put up in the last year or so. Might there be a connection? A bit far-fetched maybe, but strange thoughts do occur when you're standing in the bushes where a rapist struck, in the dark, with animals moving in the undergrowth, and alarm bells going off in your brain.
A police officer shines a torch on a clipboard and fills in a form with my details: "You never know." I will become one of 60 people who have volunteered information, some of it apparently "useful". Ian Trentum, the deputy senior investigation officer, seems interested. His officers have been concentrating on their own crime, so none of them has been down to Ashford or the other sites yet.
"Maybe that's an idea," says the detective to a colleague. They enter every lead into a computer, which matches them with others coming in to the other four incident rooms around the M25. Operation Orb is now the largest manhunt since the Yorkshire Ripper, and the 100 detectives will seize on any possible lead.
"This man must be caught as soon as possible," says Detective Sergeant Trentum, standing close to where the 14-year-old was ordered to strip at knifepoint. He could be speaking for her, or the child in Ashford. "In my opinion this is worse than murder. A little girl has to live through this, and go on living with it."
Additional reporting by Claire Newbon