Delroy Easton Grant - DNA Controversy

DNA Controversy

The Minstead Rapist was thought to be forensically aware since he never left a fingerprint at any scene. However, an offence committed on 13 October 2002 left behind a vital clue – a footprint from a size 10 Nike Air Terra Contego trainer. Most importantly he did not use condoms and his DNA was captured. The first time his DNA was discovered at a scene was in 1992. Since then, more than 2,000 DNA samples have been collected from suspects.

Britain’s national police DNA database contains samples from anyone arrested for a recordable offence since 1995. Even by the time of his first offence, the Minstead Rapist was clearly an accomplished burglar. However his DNA remained unmatched and unidentified on the database. If the rapist had ever been arrested for burglary or a related offence, it must have been before 1995 when police began routinely to gather DNA samples from prisoners.

Advanced DNA techniques pointed towards a north Afro-Caribbean ethnic origin for the rapist; probably the Windward Islands – St Lucia, Barbados, St Vincent, the Grenadines, Tobago or Trinidad. Operation Minstead identified around 21,000 possible suspects that fitted such a profile. Their progress in this expedition was reported in a piece entitled "The Frying Squad"

In March 2004, Operation Minstead detectives hand-delivered a letter to hundreds of black men in South London, asking for their help in voluntarily providing a DNA sample for elimination purposes. Police explained that they desperately needed to reduce the vast number of suspects in the operation and that this was the best way to do so. Volunteers were assured that their DNA sample would be destroyed as soon as it was confirmed to be unmatched with the rapist’s DNA. The majority of those potential suspects were eager to help if it would assist police in catching the suspect. However 125 men initially refused to provide a sample, believing it was discriminatory and breached their human rights. Police brought pressure to bear on those who refused, explaining that their behaviour could be construed as suspicious. Five objectors were subsequently arrested but cleared. This incident was seen by some commentators, particularly The Voice newspaper and Liberty, as an abuse of power that damaged relations between London’s black community and the police. A Liberal Democrat MP, Lynne Featherstone, questioned police tactics in the House of Commons. Although they were able to reduce the list of potential suspects from 21,000 to 1,000, police resigned themselves to only being able to obtain the DNA of certain suspects still on the list if and when they were arrested for an unrelated offence.