This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find disturbing and deals with Sexual Abuse from the start
Following the report of
a serious sexual assault
on an 11-year-old girl,
a forensic team, led by investigator Rachel Hughes,
is called to the house where the attack took place.
Sexual assaults on anyone, they're always horrific,
but when you do hear about these things on children,
it's very shocking. Their innocence is taken away from them.
The victim says she'd been sexually assaulted
while she's been asleep in bed by a stranger.
Someone who's not known at all to the victim.
These kind of cases are very rare,
but right now, we don't know what we're looking at at this stage.
Whilst the victim is spoken to by officers,
a forensic search of the house begins,
looking for any signs of an intruder.
The important areas within this crime scene
are the point of entry...
..and the child's bedroom itself.
Any surfaces that might have had contact from the offender.
We're looking at the doors, door handles, looking at
the door frames, doing swabs for DNA
and fingerprinting those surfaces as well.
Obviously, we just want to make sure we don't miss anything.
You've got someone who's really predatory.
They've got horrible sexual tendencies
and they're very, very dangerous.
You don't know what their next step could be.
As Rachel's team continue their search for evidence...
..the case is immediately assigned to a specialist unit,
charged with solving the most serious crimes against children.
This is a briefing in relation to Op Tetra Green,
a serious sexual assault that's taken place on an 11-year-old child,
while she's at her father's address.
Just to put some context around that.
So our victim resides with her mum during the week,
but lives with her dad at the weekend.
So we're told that she went to bed around 10:30pm on the evening.
And dad has stated that she woke him up during the night,
stating that she'd had a nightmare.
Later on, she returned to her mum's address,
and it was at her mum's address that then she disclosed to her mum
and her grandmother, I believe, what has happened to her.
She said, "There was a man who broke into our house.
"He woke me up and tried to make me do things.
"He was trying to make me touch areas of him
"and trying to touch areas of me.
"He was putting his fingers inside me."
So it's very early stages,
but obviously, we've got a serious sexual assault
of a very young child in her home.
Lots of things are going through my mind. I've got the worry,
is this a targeted sexual attack?
Have we got a stranger who's got into the house
and sexually assaulted her?
Really, really concerning.
I've got three children. Two girls and a lad.
You've got it in the back of your mind - I think you wouldn't
be normal if you didn't - that, you know, this could be your children.
We've got no witnesses at this point and no known suspects.
So, we are having to play catch-up.
It's an awful offence,
so I think we'd all want to try and get this one as quick as we can.
It is a really unusual and very distressing incident.
The challenge that we have
is that it's happened in a private residence,
it happened in the middle of the night, so there's no other witnesses
other than the victim. This is a very dangerous offence
and a very dangerous suspect that's committed this.
I think the million-dollar question is, why that house and why her?
- It was very obvious there's kids there, wasn't it? - Yeah, definitely.
There's a football goal.
- There's a rebounder thing. So... - Is it opportunistic, that
he has just been walking down there and has seen the access?
Because as soon as you come into that alleyway,
it's not far, and is it opportunistic?
We are up against the clock. Certainly, forensically.
If it's a targeted sexual attack, chances are this could be
a repeat offender, somebody who may have done it before.
So that forensic evidence could give me the breakthrough in this case
that we need to identify him.
Before vital evidence is lost,
the child has agreed to an urgent forensic medical examination,
accompanied by her family.
OK, so we have a female, 11 years old,
sexual assault, and she's attending within the hour.
The forensic medical examination of the victim
could be the only chance we've got of getting the offender's DNA.
With a sexual assault,
the victim is actually classed as a crime scene themselves.
The reason being is that there's elements of the offender
that have been left behind on the victim themselves.
Hi, lovely. Will you just
jump on this couch for me?
Crucial samples from the child
will be collected by a specially-trained nurse.
So I'm just going to show you this swab.
I'm opening it up for you and you can have a look.
It's just like a normal cotton bud swab.
It must be so daunting for her to go through something like this.
We can't forget, obviously, the fact that she's an 11-year-old girl.
But we've got specially-trained staff there
and they try and make the victim feel at ease as much as possible.
I'm just going to take some swabs.
OK?
DNA can remain on the victim for a period of time,
but there is a forensic window
of capturing those samples from the victim
because evidence can be lost.
The problem you've got is things like the victim having a wash,
the victim showering.
Sperm can only stay present for up to seven days,
so it's critical that this is done.
The sooner they're taken, the better, really.
OK. All done. There you go.
You've done really well.
The swabs are sent for priority testing,
in the hope that they may reveal the attacker's DNA.
Detectives need to gather as much detail as possible from the child
about what she can remember.
The 11-year-old is interviewed by Stacey Reynolds,
who is specially trained to speak to vulnerable children.
So for an 11-year-old child,
it is very difficult to ask them to talk about a massive trauma.
Some children obviously only remember part
and don't know if it could be a dream
or if it's actually happened. It's very difficult.
But her account is crucial.
She's the only person that knows what happened in that room.
This is horrific.
A stranger has entered her address.
He's sexually assaulted her
in her own home, when she should be safe, sleeping.
This is your worst nightmare.
This is any parent's worst nightmare.
She was amazingly brave.
I'm always mindful that trauma can affect memories in different ways,
but considering she's 11, the detail that she went into was amazing.
So I believe the child, but we do need corroborating evidence
to show that it has actually happened.
Armed with the victim's clear description of her attacker,
detectives start a sweep for CCTV near her home,
hoping to find a camera that captured him.
There's somebody out there that's dangerous.
Somebody who's doing the unthinkable thing to someone else.
So we really need to find them, as a matter of urgency.
There's been an incident that took place in the early hours
and I was just wondering, firstly, if your Ring doorbell works?
We don't have a clue who this person is.
It can feel like a needle in a haystack.
- We're trying to track him going to the offence location. - Yeah.
There's no cameras here, is there?
- There's not really anything. - No.
- What's this? - What's that?
Oh, this is a really good alleyway because it's really long.
- Yeah. - And there's no cameras that cover it,
- so if he was trying to avoid CCTV... - Yeah.
- ..this is a very good route to have taken. - Yeah.
I don't suppose you know if
her CCTV works at all?
There are no CCTV that capture that particular house,
so we're looking at the surrounding areas.
But ultimately, we're trying to identify this person,
and we want to get justice for the victim.
As detectives hunt for CCTV...
..the forensic team searches for the items described by the child.
The knife she was threatened with...
..and the water bottle the attacker took from her room.
The victim's account could be really crucial for us.
Now we can target those items
that potentially have traces of the DNA from the offender on there.
Hi, Neil. It's Rachel Hughes,
- from the Crime Scene Coordinators. - Hello, Rachel.
With regards to this kind of a scene, we're very lucky, actually,
that it's predominantly enclosed inside a house,
- therefore, we haven't sort of lost much forensically. - OK.
We've got, like, a pair of French doors,
and there's also a kitchen door.
We've taken DNA swabs from the inside and outside surfaces
of both those doors.
We've also done the same on the victim's bedroom door.
The outside surface of that
and the inside surface of that has been swabbed as well.
The problem you've got is when you have a family household
that is actually the crime scene, there can be
a lot of footfall through there,
there can be a lot of traces of DNA that are actually innocent persons
that we need to rule out, which makes it even more difficult.
There is a forensic window, obviously,
that we do stand a chance of losing evidence,
but thankfully, this is still a very forensically rich scene.
So as soon as those samples are taken,
- we'll submit those to the lab, as a matter of urgency. - OK.
We've got to try and find a forensic link
between the offender and the victim.
What they've done to that victim is so repulsive
and so scary and dangerous that we've got to do everything
we can to get him in as soon as possible.
So members of the public have uploaded up to 300 items.
The search for an image of the attacker remains vital.
Stewart has now collected over 200 hours of footage
that he needs to scrutinise for any trace of the man.
Again, it was early hours. The victim has described
a white male, with a bald head.
I'm looking at multiple cameras,
different angles.
Did they use a car? Did they go by foot?
Were they with somebody else?
These are the sort of things that we need to look at.
When it is at night,
the images are not always as clear as what we'd hope.
When you look at it, it's bad CCTV.
It's blurry, it's grainy.
It can be very tricky because it doesn't actually show too much.
We're trying to identify a route that someone has taken.
Stewart focuses on finding anyone out in the early hours
of the morning who matches the description given
by the 11-year-old child.
It's a black-and-white image,
but that is a person of interest.
Balding hair. White male.
Yeah. He's walking down there,
which leads to the main road.
OK. There aren't many
other opportunities there.
Narrowing his search, Stewart spots
a man walk into range of a camera
closer to the victim's home.
This is one of the petrol garages not too far away.
3:22 in the morning,
and there's a figure here.
He's crossed the road.
Nobody else is walking the streets at this time, at that location.
Just here.
Bald head, small in height.
Have I got a different angle?
This one's from behind. He's in colour.
White male, bald head. That's it.
Nick?
I think I've found a person.
- OK. - See him there,
- crossing the road? - Yeah.
- That's the petrol garage? - It is, yeah.
So he's walking in the direction of
the train station.
Ah, yeah, right. So these are the train steps...
- Yeah. - ..at 3:24am.
That's the same person. It is an unusual time for somebody
to be walking the streets, in those early hours.
We need to show the route
to understand his movements
before, during and after.
He's a person of great interest.
However, it's not an offence
to be walking round late at night.
It doesn't show the act being carried out.
It's showing circumstantial evidence.
It's not the best picture.
It's quite difficult to make out the colour of the clothing
because it's black and white.
It's not clear enough.
It's from quite some distance.
That's really frustrating,
because we really want to get a good clear image of their face.
This person disappears moments after that.
We need to identify other footage very quickly.
While the quest for a clearer image continues,
detectives are still hopeful
the forensic evidence gathered from the child's house
will reveal the identity of the attacker.
So, from the actual scene itself,
this is going into the victim's bedroom.
We don't think that he's actually come
any further than the bedroom itself,
and nothing to imply that he's gone in there
for a burglary because nothing's been taken.
- We haven't confirmed that yet... - No. We can't rule it out,
- can we, at the moment? - We can't rule it out, no. - Right, OK.
So let me just show you...
OK, so we've got some items of clothing.
We think these are the silky pyjama bottoms
that were put on by the victim post incident.
Those silky pyjama bottoms -
or any clothing that she was wearing during
or post incident, basically - are a priority as well.
We spoke to dad because, obviously, dad's given us a statement.
So maybe after 4am is when we think the offender's
come in and committed the offences.
There was mention on there as well that he produced a knife.
During the examination at the property, we haven't found
- that knife, but there's a water bottle. - Yeah.
It's been found in the rear garden.
So we've got the potential of fingerprints on that as well,
so we can get it into the fingerprint development lab.
- Yep. Sounds good. - Are we going to be limited with the drinks bottle
because it's been outside and the weather's been awful?
It doesn't help, but we always stand a chance
of still recovering fingerprint evidence from that.
Forensics is definitely the most crucial line of inquiry
- for us, as an investigation team, definitely, at this stage. - Yep.
- We are concerned, because of the nature of the offence. - Yes.
You know, he's still out there. We don't know who he is.
There's a lot of pressure on us at the moment
to get the name of the offender.
To get as much evidence as we can to find out who this individual is.
Based on what the victim has told us,
we now know that the offender has handled this water bottle,
so for us, it's priority at the moment to get that examined.
The child's water bottle - which was found discarded in the garden -
is fast-tracked to the fingerprint lab for screening.
What I'm doing initially
is light-sourcing the bottle,
and what I'm looking for
is latent finger marks.
A juice bottle, a water bottle,
there's a lot of traffic,
so you would imagine that you'd get
some sort of finger marks on there,
whether it be victim or the suspect.
So this is the UV light.
It will fluoresce any finger marks
that may be present.
The water bottles that you get,
the refillable ones that are plastic surfaces,
although they generally look smooth,
the actual surfaces themselves
are kind of like a textured plastic,
so don't always yield the best fingerprint evidence for us.
Unfortunately,
it doesn't look like it's enhanced
any further finger marks.
Unable to visualise any marks on the bottle,
examiner Beverley Worrell turns to a superglue chamber,
in an attempt to enhance it.
So the exhibit will go in here.
And what the superglue adheres to
is the amino acids in your fingerprints.
So any sweat components.
So the glue will stick to those, and then we'll be able to visualise
those under the white light.
So you can see you've got
run marks down the bottle.
That's where the superglue
has adhered to
what may have been juice on
the outside of the bottle.
It is disappointing when you don't
enhance any finger marks.
We're at a bit of a crossroads, really.
The water bottle hasn't yielded anything.
So at the moment, it's worrying that our offender remains unknown.
So the CCTV could be key.
CCTV is like a puzzle.
You need to be persistent.
Sometimes, I can drive past a particular area
where I've carried out CCTV
and remember something that's happened.
You don't ever forget.
It can be difficult, knowing what someone's done,
or even what they're about to do.
So I've come in this morning
and there has been a development.
OK, I think I've got him.
Stewart has received CCTV from a different camera
that reveals a new sighting.
That, there, is going to be our man.
And he's walking in the direction
of the offence location.
Zeroing in on the suspect,
he makes a significant discovery.
It's strange, he seems to come from a wooded area.
So what he's done there, I don't know.
I don't know why he would go in those woods.
He's said to have a knife,
so we need to get some officers
to have a look in that wooded area.
He could have dumped something.
He may have changed his clothing.
Is he waiting to pounce on
someone right now? Is that what I'm looking at?
Why is he going in this wooded area? That's what we need to find out.
Officers are sent to search
the woods for any items that may have been discarded by
the suspect before or after the attack.
The CCTV footage of the suspect coming out
has been taken from the camera over there,
which shows him entering
this woodland at 3:30am.
He's in here, then he's popped back out the same entrance at 3:38am.
So he may be coming in here, actually, to leave things in here.
We haven't been able to recover the knife,
so my hypothesis for there is that it's been taken with the offender
when he's left. Whether it's discarded then, I don't know.
What's that purple thing, there?
I'm not looking at a full forensic examination of the scene,
but I want to know what's there.
Just a bag. Thank you.
There doesn't look like anything obvious, like a bag or anything,
- does there? - No.
There is no trace of a knife,
or any further clues as to what the man was doing there.
What I have is pyjama shorts.
They are child size, 11 to 12 years.
While detectives are no closer
to identifying the offender,
clothing from the child is tested
for any bodily fluids or cells
which may reveal his DNA.
We've got to consider the possibility
of any sort of touch DNA, any cellular DNA,
that's been transferred from him to her.
But DNA is very sensitive.
It will degrade over a period of time.
There are concerns that we could lose forensic evidence,
so nothing's a guarantee.
There may be a chance of finding
the offender's saliva,
after the child reported being licked during the assault.
For saliva, what we're going to do
is we're going to wet our amylase paper, infused with starch.
Now I'm going to place it on the item and pat it,
so any saliva that is on the item
will be transferred onto the paper.
Saliva can actually stay on clothing
a lot longer than actually being present on skin for,
and a lot of it's to do with the texture of material and fabric.
So we're holding out hope that we can still find
the offender's DNA there.
This is iodine working solution.
This reacts with the starch in the paper.
OK, so what we have here
is amylase-positive areas,
which you can see here.
The area that has reacted positively
is then cut out
and matched back to the pyjamas.
OK.
I'm going to place this on the item,
draw through the holes.
This shows that we have had
a positive reaction for saliva
in the crotch area
of the victim's pyjama bottoms.
The sample will now be sent to a specialist lab,
to try and extract DNA that can be checked against known offenders
on the police database.
I've got all the CCTV footage from yesterday.
Stewart has been piecing together further doorbell footage,
in a bid to track the suspicious man
after the attack took place.
He's just walking past.
OK, so this is 4:41 in the morning.
And that, there...
..is our suspect,
still looking exactly the same.
New images, showing the suspect
coming from the direction of the victim's house,
could provide the missing link.
That's a cul-de-sac.
He's going to appear... There he is.
There's not many houses up there,
so we now need to try and work out
where that person lives.
And then, all of a sudden, all these jigsaw pieces
come together momentarily,
split second.
And this, I think, is the breakthrough that we need,
because this street's a cul-de-sac.
So the chances are, this person lives in that street.
That, there, is our suspect.
That was 3:23am, so
that's definitely the same person.
Stewart checks earlier footage
and discovers the man leaving a house
just half an hour before the attack.
Officers immediately head to the house.
SIRENS WAIL
They find a man who resembles
the person seen on CCTV.
- What was your name, pal? - Stephen Jeffries.
Stephen, you're under arrest on suspicion of sexual assault.
I caution you that you do not need to say anything,
but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned,
something you may later rely on in court.
Just to remind you, you're under caution, Stephen, all right?
OK.
All right, that's one in custody.
All right. Out you pop, pal.
Four days since the sexual assault,
the 33-year-old suspect
is brought into custody.
So I am authorising your detention as being necessary
to secure and preserve evidence and to obtain evidence by questioning.
You just need to stay up here, Stephen.
Do you need to sit down?
When we have a suspect that's brought into custody,
forensically, there's quite a few things that we can try and gain
from that, really. For example, the clothing
that the actual offender is wearing.
And also, it's really important for intimate samples
to be taken from the person in custody.
So I just need you to hold your penis out as far as you can for me,
and I'm going to swab it.
There is possibly a chance
that we could get some sort of DNA evidence from her on him,
based on her account.
OK, that's all done.
You can pull your trousers back up now.
It may have been several days since the incident happened,
but even if they've washed,
there could just be a small fragment of evidence there.
Detectives now have 24 hours
to find evidence linking the suspect to the attack.
A fingertip search of his house gets under way.
I'm just going to brief you
about what we're searching for.
Clothing.
The path and the route that we believe the offender's taken
is through, like, a muddy alleyway and garden,
so he's probably going to be caked up in mud.
Digital devices - phones, tablets -
would be really helpful to the investigation.
We're almost playing catch-up, and the suspect has got
24 hours, plus, on us,
and has had opportunity to think about what they're going to do
after they've committed the offence. You know, are they going to be
destroying evidence? Are they going to be hiding things?
We have a pair of black trainers,
with mud on.
- Has any clothing been seized? - Nothing, no, no. - Doesn't... OK.
So there's no clothing that matches any description
- of anything we're after. - That's a pity.
When we look at his circumstances,
he lives with his parents, in a normal family home.
Looking at him, he could present as just being
a normal member of the public.
In the kitchen, officers also retrieve a small foldable knife.
It matches the description
of our victim, yeah.
We'll seize that, and then that will probably
be put to the suspect in interview.
So that's a great find. Awesome.
I'll start by thanking everyone for their hard work today.
Our suspect is in custody now.
Can you just give us a little brief of where we are with our victim?
Yeah. So, erm, victim and family were updated yesterday,
in relation to the arrest of the suspect.
Obviously, mum was understandably emotional.
Mum has stated that her daughter isn't sleeping.
Mum has to sleep in the room with her because she's just petrified.
But hopefully, with the suspect in custody,
it can offer some sort of comfort.
- So let's see what he's got to say, if he's going to say anything. - Yep.
It's all counting on this interview, really,
to try and get the suspect
to prove or disprove their involvement in an offence.
We need to try and place him in that bedroom.
So you were arrested for sexual assault of a child under 13 years.
So firstly, are you guilty of that offence?
Stephen, obviously, you've had your advice off your solicitor.
It is advice, so it is completely your choice.
So if you do choose that you want to answer the questions,
that is your choice, OK?
So I just need to ask you just about some significant comments
that were made after you were arrested.
So at 16:54 - so after you were cautioned - you said,
"I should have died when I tried. It should have worked.
"I haven't got a mind any more."
Can you tell me about that, please?
The victim is 11 years old.
She has described, in detail, to me what's happened to her.
She states that she's woke up to a man kneeling next to her.
She said that then you've put your hand over her mouth.
Tell me about that.
She's saying that she was shown a knife,
and she describes it as it was like a pocket knife.
And she was told that she wasn't allowed to tell anybody,
or this man has said that he will kill everyone in that house.
Tell me about that.
Is that fair, that an 11-year-old child
should be scared in their own home?
How does that make you feel?
The suspect is very agitated.
He's fidgeting a lot.
He just looks like
that he is hiding something.
Did you use that knife to threaten her?
Was it a pocket knife?
Can you tell me the colour of the pocket knife?
Was it blue?
Do you own a blue pocket knife?
Where did you get the knife from, Stephen?
Stephen. Stephen.
Stephen, you're going to hurt your head.
Stephen.
OK, OK, Stephen.
Stephen, would you like a break?
Stephen. Stephen. Stephen,
you're going to have to stop.
He wants the interview
to end and he wants me to stop asking him the questions,
so it can just go away.
I do believe that it's incriminating,
so I will try and probe
as much as possible to get the truth.
- What's he said? - "No comment."
He's probably done what we said he would do.
Admitted it all to his solicitor, and then his solicitor has told him
to go "no comment", because all he's going to do
is incriminate himself further, isn't he?
With the suspect refusing to talk
and the custody clock ticking,
the focus moves to searching his phone
for anything that connects him to the crime.
We've got specialist software that we can use,
and we'll take the media from our extraction and place it into it.
We can quickly run through and see what's on the handset.
Digital investigator Jack McCowie
manages a full download of data from the device.
I'm just going through some of the web history here,
and there is 33,000
searches on here.
You get such an insight into someone's life,
looking at their mobile.
You don't just see the crime
that's happened in front of you, you see the person,
you see their personality develop
and what they've been searching for.
You can see those silly questions
that we all ask, or do some shopping
online, or whatever.
So I can see he's got
Snapchat installed,
Instagram installed. All of these apps, you can communicate across.
Was this a targeted sort of crime
or was this just by chance?
I want to have a look to see if
there's any link to that victim.
Does he have an interest in children? Can I prove that?
Yeah.
So just going through the media on the device,
there's images
that are children at the beach.
No-one would look at this and go,
"This is a normal amount to have."
You know, it's children that he doesn't know.
It gives you a mindset of that person behind
the scenes, and that's exactly what your digital devices do.
He's got them in such quantity.
We've found screen recordings,
which look to be of webcam sessions
for adult content, where
the users can chat to the model.
And there's a chat here which is saying,
"Hi, it's Steve, can you please
"show me your belly button? Can you please show me
"your belly button up close?
"Can you press your belly button and screen belly button?"
We've got belly button searches,
which then also relate to pornographic websites.
On the next search, he's searching
for children's belly buttons,
pornography which includes belly buttons.
So he's been looking for these images, searching for these terms.
It's quite disturbing.
Searches for people who are
sleeping, passed out, defenceless,
sort of those vulnerable people.
The internet is generally just the Wild West,
so people will try and hide their search history.
Part of forensics is going through
sort of the additional data,
the stuff that sits behind it all.
It's all logged. It's all tracked in the back end.
And that's what we view. We're not viewing it as the user sees it.
So I've just come across my first illegal image.
This is child sexual abuse material, or Csam.
So we split the illegal material
into different categories.
Currently found one Cat B, which is
sexual activity with a child,
and five Cat Cs, which is sexual posing as a child.
Aged between the ages of four to ten.
It's horrific...
..but unfortunately, in terms of this case,
there's nothing here that relates directly to the crime. There's no
evidence that he was there, or anything along those lines.
However, there's illegal files,
there's searches that are starting to look indicative to the crime,
and we're painting this picture of his mindset.
Although there is now enough to charge the suspect
with possession of illegal images...
If you just go in that room here, to the left.
..there is still no forensic proof
that he committed the sexual assault.
Your mobile phone,
I believe that you had this when you were arrested.
Is this your mobile phone?
OK.
So on this mobile phone,
there's been extensive
sexualised search history around belly buttons.
Tell me about that.
Do you have a sexual attraction
to people's belly buttons?
There's also searches for
sleep-attack pornography.
And also, there were searches for rape.
And is that something that you get sexual gratification from?
So we've got a map here.
We believe that you have entered
and gained access to the back of these properties.
Can you tell me if that is the route you took?
Do you know that area well?
We don't want this offender to be walking out from custody.
The whole job is riding on the forensic evidence
to prove that he has actually entered that address
and he is the person that's actually committed that crime.
In a specialist forensic lab,
the complex process of trying to extract DNA
from saliva found on the child's
pyjama shorts is under way...
..but this can take up to
48 hours to complete.
With no guarantee they can extract
a full DNA profile from the shorts,
Rachel meets with Neil
to plan their best next steps.
So it's pretty disturbing, what's been found on his phone, to be fair.
Many, many searches around paralysed or sleeping women.
- Oh, my goodness. - So all pretty disturbing. - Horrific.
- Pretty disturbing, pretty horrific. - Yeah.
So, you know, definitely, we've got a sexual interest in children
and belly button fetishes.
Obviously, the swabs that were taken from our victim's stomach,
if he has sort of licked around or put his mouth on her stomach area,
that's obviously a priority submission.
- So allowing for DNA profiling... - Yeah. Yeah.
So hopefully, we'll get a result as soon as possible.
We've established that the offender has a fetish about belly buttons.
Because of the sexual nature of the incident,
we're looking for any traces of either his saliva or his semen
that could be present on the victim herself, on her stomach area.
We're holding out so much hope now
that this is going to be the area
that's going to give us the breakthrough.
I have got swabs to examine today.
Forensic samples taken from
the victim's stomach area
are now prioritised for testing.
I'm going to be teasing
the fibres apart of the swab heads
to loosen up any of the cellular
material that is in these swabs.
So next, we're going to add
the solution.
And then we're going to put this
into the centrifuge.
And we're going to spin it down, so that we get a pellet.
The centrifuge separates heavier particles, such as semen,
to make it easier to detect.
OK.
So this will contain the cells.
Now what we have to do
is stain the stain that we've made.
We're going to use this using Christmas tree staining.
It stains any sperm heads
present in the sample a pink colour.
So, what we can see...
..down the microscope is these
little pink heads here
are the semen heads.
It's a very good result for us,
but we can't automatically assume
that we're going to get a DNA hit from that.
It depends on the amount of sperm heads that are left behind.
So we won't know until we actually send off the samples from that
to establish whether it gives us a full DNA profile or not.
The sample is urgently sent for DNA analysis
to see if it matches the suspect in custody.
I just wanted to give you a phone call.
I'll email you over the timeline.
We're just looking for an extension.
His time is up in...four hours.
So it would take us to half one in the morning.
With the custody clock running out,
detectives request a 12-hour extension
to keep the suspect behind bars,
while they wait for the forensic results.
He might come out with reasonable lines of inquiry
that we need to do while he's in custody.
We are looking at going as a red case to CPS.
Yes...
OK. That's fine. I'll do that now.
All right. Thanks, boss. Bye.
There is always that risk
that we are going to have to release
our suspect from custody,
that we can't gather all the evidence within
the custody time limit that we have.
That is frustrating if we have to release him.
So we need a real breakthrough
forensically as soon as possible.
The results of the DNA extraction process
on both the saliva and semen samples have come through
and are fast-tracked for analysis
by senior reporter Charlotte Hargreaves.
In effect, a DNA profile is just a string of numbers,
but they are known to differ between individuals.
So we look at 16 areas.
And from that sample,
we obtained a full DNA profile.
What you can see is that the major DNA profile,
which is all of the very large pieces of DNA,
that indicates that it's from a female.
And we know that this profile matches
that of the injured party herself.
What we're interested in
is these smaller bits of DNA here.
Charlotte compares the DNA profile
to find out if it matches
to that of the suspect.
These numbers basically comprise
this individual's DNA profile.
So this is a number 14
which, obviously, when I go to the semen profile,
that matches that same number 14.
We've got some smaller areas here.
14, 15, and then a 17,
and then a 12 over here.
And come back to this,
and you can see that these - 14, 15, the 17 -
they match the person whose profile
we've obtained from the semen.
It being a billion times more likely that the DNA originated
from that person, rather than somebody unrelated to them.
Hello, Rachel Hughes. Crime Scene Coordinators. Can I help?
Hello. So just to give you another update in relation to this case.
OK. Yeah.
OK, so comparing it currently to the DNA profile that we've got
from the semen on the stomach swabs...
- OK, yeah. - ..and saliva,
and I can see that that profile, you know, does match.
So does the DNA match to the person that we have in custody?
We've had some really good news through.
His DNA has been found on the victim, on her clothing.
How can you explain that? There's no explanation for that.
It absolutely confirms that he was the offender in this case.
So your semen has been found on the victim's stomach.
How can you account for that?
I believe that the fact may be due to you taking part
in the commission of that offence.
I just want the truth.
So from what you're saying to me there,
it doesn't matter what it is,
you get sexual gratification?
Yes. Interview paused at 14:34.
The final decision on whether to charge the suspect rests with
the Crown Prosecution Service.
Yeah.
We've got his semen on her stomach.
There's no reasonable explanation for that.
Yeah, that's perfect.
Just get him charged, yeah.
OK.
Lovely. Bye.
That's a really good result. That's a fantastic result.
We've got a really strong case now
because we've got our offender, his DNA,
he's confirmed it's a match.
There's nothing better than being able to tell the family
that we've caught him.
We've absolutely got him nailed on for this
because we've got the forensics, etc.
And we've got our victim on board and everything.
The victim, throughout this, has been so unbelievably brave.
She's shown immense strength
in actually telling somebody about what happened,
given the threats that the suspect made to her family.
It's a really great feeling to know that he's going to get charged
with this horrific offence against this really young girl.
Less than a week after the 11-year-old child awoke
to find an intruder in her room,
her suspected attacker is taken to be charged.
So you're charged with the following offences.
Knowing or recklessly trespassed on premises,
with the intention of committing
a relevant sexual offence on those premises.
Your second one,
intentionally penetrated the vagina of a girl under the age of 13
with a part of your body - namely, fingers -
and that penetration was sexual.
Your next one, intentionally touched a girl under the age of 13,
and the touching was sexual,
and namely, touching and masturbating your penis.
Contrary to Section Eight, One and Three of
the Sexual Offences Act, 2003.
So those are charges they've come back with.
Can I ask you to sign on there,
to say I've read those charges out to you?
I'm very pleased that we've
successfully secured a charge.
I think it's an amazing result
that we get a paedophile off the streets.
OK, Stephen, because of the nature of the offences,
you're not going to be getting bail.
You will be staying with us overnight, to be collected
in the morning to be taken to court.
All right? Is there any questions you need to ask me?
No. OK.
There's no way, I don't feel,
that we could have secured this kind of positive result against
such an individual without the forensic evidence that we've got.
OK, Stephen, if you want to
come with me, OK?
So for us to get him off the streets,
a predator like that behind bars,
that's the result we're after.
As a mother, this kind of job
does stay with you, unfortunately.
But what it does do,
it kind of makes you more aware that
we've made a difference here.
Let's not forget how crucial the victim's been in all of this.
She's been brave. She's provided all those forensic samples for us.
She's been so strong in all of this.
Your heart just goes out to the victim and her family.
So for him to be behind bars is a relief for everyone.
Every contact leaves a trace
that forensic experts can follow.
Explore it for yourself with the Open University's
new interactive case simulator.
Scan the QR code on-screen,
or visit connect.open.ac.uk/realcsi.