'Night Stalker' jailed for life

British 'Night Stalker' Delroy Grant was jailed for life today for carrying out sex attacks on elderly people in a 17-year reign of terror.

The former minicab driver, 53, was found guilty of preying on 18 vulnerable pensioners – but police fear he may have attacked more than 500 victims.

Grant was told he will spend a minimum of 27 years behind bars as he was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court in south London.

Passing sentence, Judge Peter Rook told Grant he remained a "very dangerous man capable of committing heinous crimes and causing incalculable harm" and warned him he could die in jail.

The judge said: "You targeted elderly victims living alone. Your actions blighted the remaining precious years of their lives. Their homes, where many of them had lived for years, should have been their safest refuge where they could have expected to live their lives undisturbed and at peace.

“You chose to invade their homes when they were in their beds at night.

“It’s hard to imagine the extreme fear that the feel of your gloved hand and the sight of your masked figure looming above them must have been felt by your victims in their beds.”

Grant, of Brockley Mews, Honor Oak, south-east London, was found guilty yesterday of 29 charges relating to burglaries, attempted burglaries, rapes and indecent assaults against 18 elderly people between October 1992 and November 2009.

He has already spent a year and 129 days in custody awaiting trial and will not be allowed to apply for parole until he is 78, the court heard.

The judge said he considered giving Grant a whole-life sentence and noted that his crimes were so serious they were not covered by normal sentencing guidelines.

“Your offending is in a league of its own,” he said.

The court heard moving statements today from Grant’s victims and their families about the impact his sick crimes had on them.

'It changed my life'

One 85-year-old woman, referred to as Miss J for legal reasons, bravely entered the witness box to give evidence about how she continues to suffer from her ordeal nearly nine years ago.

She was 77 when Grant burgled and indecently assaulted her at her bungalow in Shirley, Croydon, in October 2002.

In a statement from 2003 she said: “I have found that time is not a great healer. I don’t think it’s got any easier over the last year.

“I certainly haven’t got back my peace of mind. Nobody can guarantee it won’t happen again.”

She added: “It’s something I shall never forget completely. It still feels so recent.”

The judge asked if her experiences at Grant’s hands still affected her today.

Miss J replied: “If I go out I like to be home before dark. I do a lot of locking and bolting, and taking precautions... It changed my life.”

She was watched from the dock by Grant, who sat impassively throughout most of the hearing but occasionally shook his head.

The judge paid tribute to Miss J’s “courageous” testimony.

He also quoted from the son of another of the sexual predator’s victims, who said: “It has ruined the winter years of my mother’s life, and she has to live with this for the rest of her life.”

Sentence details

Grant received four life sentences for three rapes and one attempted rape of elderly women.

He was also given concurrent eight-year sentences for seven indecent assaults, and concurrent six-year sentences for 18 burglaries and attempted burglaries.

His defence counsel, Courtenay Griffiths QC, admitted that he could offer no mitigation for his client other than to point out that his age means he will probably spend the rest of his life in jail.

The judge noted that in all but one case Grant targeted elderly people living alone, suggesting that his attacks involved “considerable planning”.

He told him: “Your offending spans a period of 17 years. Five London boroughs were affected by your offending.

“During that period your activities must have terrified a whole community, as your counsel accepted.

“Thousands of people in south London have been living in fear that they might be your next victim.”

Police apology

The Metropolitan Police apologised after it was revealed that officers botched a chance to stop Grant in 1999.

The former minicab driver is feared to have preyed on hundreds of elderly victims after “basic errors” at Scotland Yard meant he remained at large.

Many of Grant’s victims – aged up to 89 – were blind, deaf or suffered from conditions including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

The hallmark of his offences was to remove light bulbs and cut telephone lines, then grab his victims with a gloved hand.

He woke terrified pensioners by shining a torch in their eyes before engaging them in conversation.

He then subjected some of the vulnerable elderly people to humiliating and degrading sexual assaults for a gratification described in court as impossible to understand.

Grant, a father of 10 and full-time carer for his estranged wife Jennifer, who has multiple sclerosis, refused to discuss his crimes with police when he was finally arrested in November 2009, but he stunned officers by suggesting they should instead speak to his son about the offences.

By the time the case arrived in court more than a year later, he had spun a web of lies in an attempt to get off the hook.

Among a string of “almost laughable” explanations heard during the trial was a claim that his ex-wife stored his semen in 1977 and then waited 15 years to frame him for the crimes.

The judge said these false accusations were an illustration of Grant’s “complete amorality”.

“You have never shown any remorse. You appear to have no feelings whatsoever for your victims, or indeed your own family, or former family,” he said.