Why Did He Do It?

It must be a huge relief to everyone living in South London that Delroy Grant, the so-called Night Stalker, has been convicted of several rapes and a number of burglaries. He always attacked at night and often targetted elderly women. It has subsequently emerged that he was responsible for 203 similar offences, but the total number of victims may exceed 500 as police strongly suspect that many victims of burglaries were too ashamed to reveal they had been sexually assaulted.

Grant decided to plead not guilty to all charges and in the eyes of many concocted a ridiculous defence saying his former estranged wife had stored his body fluids and planted them at all the crime scenes. After the conviction, Commander Foy, head of homicide and serious crime at Scotland Yard described Grant as “perverted, callous and violent”.

He said that his crimes were among the worst ever investigated by Scotland Yard and added:

“For a period between 1992 and 2009 he preyed on elderly people in south-east London, violating them and their homes, and causing deep distress and trauma to his victims and their families. He was also feared by many people living in the same communities and it is not too dramatic to say when he was caught thousands of people in south east London were able to switch out their lights and go to sleep without the dreadful thought they would be preyed upon by Grant. He is a perverted, callous and violent individual who is a sexual predator, rapist and nigh-time burgler who preyed on the elderly. There may be some speculation, even fascination, as to who he is, how he operated and what drove him to commit such crimes".

The judge in this case made it clear that he had considered imposing a 'whole life' tariff in relation to the four life sentences he handed down, but in the end specified a minimum term of 27 years before consideration of parole. Not unusually the judge adjourned over night before passing sentence, possibly to allow himself time to reflect. But, as the police officer said, 'who is he and what drove him to commit such crimes?' 

There are a whole range of sound reasons why that question needs to be answered but in my view the process has not been assisted by the judge deciding not to order psychiatric reports prior to announcing sentence. As I have explained previously, in cases such as this there is no probation pre sentence report, but rather a post life sentence report prepared a few weeks following sentence.

It may be that part of the answer to the question lies within the orbit of Personality Disorder  but in the absence of expert reports we are not going to know. It's just possible that reports had been prepared during his remand in custody and pre conviction, but there is no mention of this in press coverage and such reports may not have been agreed to by his defence team. As always in very serious cases like this, I worry about a lack of psychiatric assessment that could provide a medical diagnosis and indicate detention at a Special Hospital as being appropriate.