London man charged with rape and burglary of elderly victims over 17 years - The Guardian

An alleged serial rapist known as the "night stalker" carried out a "serious and sinister" 17-year campaign of sexual abuse targeting the elderly who lived alone, a court has been told.

Delroy Grant, 53, of Honor Oak, south London, is accused of raping three women, attempting to rape another and of carrying out six indecent assaults and one sexual assault during night-time burglaries between October 1992 and November 2009.

He struck late at night, selecting vulnerable victims, all but one of whom lived alone, and broke into their homes in a series of "carefully planned" attacks in which he wore a mask and gloves to help conceal his identity.

His attacks focused on, but were not confined to, elderly women, mostly in their 80s. The eldest was 89. Two of the attacks were on elderly men, both of whom were subjected to "humiliating and degrading" sexual attacks.

Jonathan Laidlaw, opening the case for the prosecution, said: "The nature of his sexual attacks he committed seems in part, to have been determined by the reaction of the individual victim. Those who were too frightened to resist or protest were attacked. Where he experienced resistance and where his elderly victims refused to be compliant, they tended to be left alone."

Laidlaw said: "What motivated Delroy Grant to carry out sexual offences on the very elderly and what sort of gratification he could possibly have achieved is obviously difficult if not impossible to understand.

"Whether it was just the additional sexual element that he enjoyed or it was the power and control he could assert whilst committing these offences, or it was the fear and anxiety which he created and revelled in, will probably remain unclear."

Grant is accused of 29 offences, in 18 separate incidents in south London, Kent and Sussex, in which he stole cash, credit cards and other items from his victims. He denies the charges.

In what the prosecution said were hallmarks of the planned attacks, he removed the light bulbs from the bedrooms to help conceal his identity and cut the telephone wires, leaving his victims unable to summon help.

In the dock of Woolwich crown court, Grant, dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, sat impassively as the charges were read out.

His first attack, on 11 October 1992, was on an old woman of 89 who was living on her own, the jury heard.

She was woken by the defendant, who appeared standing over her, masked and gloved in her bedroom after breaking in through a kitchen window. He asked her for money and searched her room, before turning his attention to the woman and raping her.

Despite taking numerous precautions to conceal his identity, he "did not rush and was not normally in any sort of hurry to leave," Laidlaw said.

"He was comfortable in the homes of those he burgled and often engaged his elderly victims in conversation."

Six years later, in 1998, he attempted to rape another victim, this time an elderly lady of 81 who was immobile and almost housebound. She died a year later, of unrelated causes. The following year, he committed six further burglaries and an attempted burglary, indecently assaulting three of the victims and raping two women, aged 82 and 88.

Laidlaw said Grant believed it would be difficult for any victim subjected to the trauma of an attack in their own homes to identify him: "For the elderly the position was likely to be even more difficult. There was a good chance they might not even be capable of reporting what had happened."

There were no more rapes after 1999 but he went on to commit burglaries and carried on with indecent assaults. The trial continues.