My part in a killer's arrest
How the Metropolitan Police failed to find Britain's longest-serving prisoner on the Police National Computer - and what happened when a film I directed about him appeared on TV days later
On August 10th last year, a 52-year-old woman sat down to eat her dinner and watch the news.
She’d had a brutal few weeks.
The woman was a survivor of domestic abuse years earlier and had slowly been rebuilding her life. Part of her recovery was to join a community group near her north London home.
There, a few months earlier, she met Ronald Evans. Evans was 81 years old, tall, slim, charming and had a deep East Midlands accent. He volunteered there and would help with delivering food bags to the needy.
He was fairly new to this part of London. They had become friends.
Evans suggested going for lunch, and on July 15th, three weeks earlier - they had popped to the local pub where they had a two-meals-for-£12-deal.
The lunch was uneventful. Afterwards they went to his flat where he got out his phone and started showing her images he had been sent online. The pictures were of half-clothed women and soft porn.
Then he sexually assaulted her.
The woman was terrified. She stood up and started to leave. As she did, he groped her again.
LISTEN TO ‘I WAS AN AGENT PROVOCATEUR’ INTERVIEW WITH DECOY OFFICER HERE - FOR FREE
The next day she sent him a text saying he had behaved inappropriately and had not respected her boundaries.
He called back saying ‘this kind of talk will get me into trouble.’
Then at the community group, the victim met another woman. She said she had had a similar experience with Evans, he’d attacked her three times, she said.
The victim reported her assault to the Metropolitan Police Service on August 2nd 2022. The other woman complained two days later.
Police carried out ‘initial intelligence checks.’
This included looking on the Police National Computer (PNC.)
Officers told the victim there was nothing on that system for Ronald Evans.
So on the 10th of August, as she sat eating her tea, watching the television news, she saw a report.
It was by me.
It was about a film I had directed which was coming out about an incredible police decoy operation used to catch a killer and serial rapist in the 1970s.
He was called Ronald Evans.
The victim saw the image of the man and realised it was a younger version of the 81-year-old who had assaulted her.
She called police again and he was arrested the following day.
Last week Evans was jailed for this assault. The jury found him ‘not guilty’ of the alleged attacks on the other woman.
The prosecution argued for a two-year sentence, but the judge said Evans presented ‘such a risk’ to women she increased the ‘category’ of the offence, meaning she could make his sentence a four-year term.
The prosecuting barrister, Lauren Sales KC told the court about how the survivor found out about Evans’s long criminal history:
''One day after she'd gone to the police she'd sat down in front of the television. She saw the news on ITV and there was Mr Evans, the Clifton Rapist., the UK's longest-serving prisoner.
'And they were talking of how he'd raped and murdered someone and how he had raped many more woman after he had got out of prison. She felt sick and called 101. She told them that was the man they couldn't find on their systems. He was there on the TV in her living room.’
But why did the police fail to know that this serial offender was living in North London?
The Ministry of Justice, which manages the Probation Service said it informed the Met and sent a copy of his life licence.
The Met gave me an initial statement.
It said: ‘Initial enquiries were under way. After Evans was reported on 2 and 4 August intelligence checks were conducted.
‘Evans’s address was known to police and was provided by the victim.
‘Police were notified on 11 August 2022 by the victim about the report on national news and engagement with probation and the offender management unit was conducted. He was arrested the next day. The film did not prompt the arrest.
‘We’re not aware of any formal complaints.’
This wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to know was there a problem with the PNC? Had his details been inputted incorrectly or could the police not be bothered to look properly?
The Met sent me a second statement reading: ‘Initial investigating officers had planned to conduct a voluntary interview with Evans after he was identified as a potential suspect. During these initial enquiries his name was checked on the PNC database, however no previous convictions were flagged.
‘He was subsequently arrested a week later after his previous convictions became known, following the publication of a television programme.’
Still not enough, and also contradictory to the first statement. They were now saying the TV report had had an influence on the arrest.
Now the Met has stopped engaging with me.
He clearly was on the PNC. A great cold case detective - and Behind the Crimes interviewee - Gary Mason was part of a 2005 prosecution of Evans. He found Evans on the PNC nearly 20 years ago.
Had these Met officers been too busy or disinterested to look? Where was their professional curiosity?
And what would have happened had the news report not aired? Would Evans be free still to carry out more attacks on vulnerable women?
Evans’s criminal history:
1940: Born in Derbyshire
1963: Murdered Kathleen Heathcote in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire
1964: Jailed for life
1974; Transferred to an open prison
1975: Released on Life Licence - to be overseen by Probation Service - and starts living in Bristol
1977: Carried out four stranger-attacks on women in Bristol
1978: Carried out three more stranger-attacks on women in Bristol
1979: Caught through a police decoy operation and jailed for five of these attacks
2005: Admitted the other two attacks through Gary Mason’s cold case investigation
2018: Released from prison to London on Life Licence to be overseen by Probation Service
2020-21: A woman claimed he sexually assaulted her three times
2022: A second woman said he assaulted her
2023: Jailed for four years for the 2022 assault. Cleared of the 2020/21 ones.