Crime & Investigation Network

In 1974, almost every male in Cambridge was a suspected rapist. Over the course of eight months, an unknown man of average height and wearing a bizarre leather mask had been creeping into bedsits and halls of residence at night. He had sexually assaulted six women and wounded a further two. Largely unreported until now, this is the story of one of the biggest manhunts in recent British history. Police were drafted in from all over the county and 100 plain clothes officers patrolled the streets every night. Men in Cambridge and Newmarket gladly took saliva tests to eliminate themselves as suspects, but a DNA match was never found. Then one night, he attacked one woman too many and, as he was caught fleeing the scene with his mask, ethanol, ropes and cloths in his rucksack, police officers finally discovered how the 'Cambridge Rapist' had evaded them for so long.