Delroy Grant

Delroy Easton Grant (born 3 September 1957) is a Jamaican-born British convicted serial rapist who carried out a series of offences of burglary, rape and sexual assault between October 1992 and May 2009 in the South East London area of England.

Grant, also known as the Minstead Rapist and latterly the Night Stalker, is thought to have been active since 1990.

He had a distinctive modus operandi, preying primarily on elderly women who lived alone.

He is suspected of over 100 offences from 1990 to 2009.

The confirmed series of offences began in October 1992 in the Shirley area of Croydon.

After the first attack in October 1992, no further offences were reported until 1997.

In 1998, the Metropolitan Police launched the dedicated Operation Minstead team to investigate the crimes, based at Lewisham police station.

(The name was chosen from an alphabetical list of English villages, the method of operational naming in use at the time).

However, because of a break of four years between this first attack and a spate of others, Operation Minstead was not set up until 1998.

Although committing many crimes, Grant was dormant for long periods.

The fact that many offences had taken place in Orpington, including one on Boxing Day in 1998, led detectives to suspect the rapist had a link to the area.

Det Supt Morgan commented, "He either lives, works or has some connection with someone he visits in Orpington. This could be a child, a school or a job".

On three occasions, the rapist made remarks about having to get to Brighton.

Grant gained entry to the homes of his victims from the side or the rear, either through open windows or by removing a window pane entirely.

He had been known to use tools stolen from the victim's own garden shed to remove the window beading.

He ripped out the telephone wires, either before entering the property, or after gaining access.

He then disabled the lights either by switching off the electricity at the meter or by removing lightbulbs from their sockets.

After a particularly violent rape on 5 August 1999 where his victim almost died from her injuries, there was another long break.

This prompted some media speculation that the rapist had been imprisoned for an unrelated offence or that he had died.

Detective Superintendent Simon Morgan, who headed the Minstead team from 2001 to October 2009, explained the problems in arriving at a definitive total of offences in this series by saying, "His victims come from a generation who are inclined to see good in everyone. One thanked him for being gentle when he raped her".

Another said she did not want to dial 999 "because I know the police are already so busy".

The offences occurred in defined geographical clusters in and around South East London.

Most of the offences occurred around Shirley in Croydon, and in Orpington.

However he also struck in Coulsdon, Forest Hill, Catford, Brockley, Bromley, Beckenham, Dulwich and Sidcup.

Only once was there a report of his offending outside Greater London.

This was in Warlingham, Surrey.

However, on 13 October 2002, ten years after the first attack, he struck again.

Seven confirmed attacks took place in the summer of 2003.

Another break then followed.

A further series of confirmed attacks took place towards the end of 2008, and into mid-2009.

As of 2009, the operation was the largest and most complex rape investigation ever undertaken by the Metropolitan Police.

On 24 March 2011, Grant was found guilty of 22 offences.

The following day he was given four life sentences and ordered to serve a minimum of 27 years in prison.

Operation Minstead was dramatised over the 2020 second series of the British TV show Manhunt, based on the memoirs of former SIO Colin Sutton.

Grant was an accomplished burglar and had broken into the homes of over 90 elderly women aged between 68 and 93.

He was positively linked to four reported rapes and around 30 other sexual assaults.

Police believe he was also responsible for at least another two rapes where the victims felt unable to make any official allegation.

The true total may be higher as his victims were often too traumatised to speak to police.

In addition, the Operation Minstead investigation team had to decide which incidents were unmistakably the work of the same offender and which were similar but possibly unrelated.

Therefore, many possible Minstead incidents flagged up by police for the attention of the Operation Minstead team could not be definitely confirmed as the work of the same offender, and so had to be excluded from the linked series.