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Court hears of pensioner assaults

www.pressassociation.com

7 March 2011

Alleged victims of the south London "Night Stalker" rapist have given harrowing accounts of their attacks from beyond the grave.
Elderly pensioners were left to live out their last years in fear after Delroy Grant embarked on a campaign of terror that was to last 17 years, Woolwich Crown Court heard.
Among a string of statements read out at his trial from alleged victims who have now died, one pensioner told how she did not want to tell her son about the attack because he would be "horrified".
The oldest, an 89-year-old, left a detective in tears and said she regretted reporting the attack to police, the court heard.
Grant, a 53-year-old former minicab driver, is accused of preying on elderly women and men across south London, which he denies.
Detective Constable Yvette Daniel said that Grant's alleged first victim, the 89-year-old, was clearly traumatised as doctors inspected her wounds.
The officer said she was personally "upset and concerned" as the old woman tightly held her hand after the horrific attack in Shirley, south London, in 1992.
"I wish I had not reported it now," the woman was said to have told the detective. Det Con Daniel added: "As she said that, I had tears in my eyes."
A second victim, an acute arthritis sufferer from Warlingham, Surrey, said she believed her attacker was "going to finish me off". The 81-year-old, who was attacked in September 1998, said she did not initially want to tell her son about the extent of the attack because he would have been "horrified".
Grant, of Brockley Mews, Honor Oak, south-east London, denies 29 charges relating to burglaries, attempted burglaries, rapes and indecent assaults against 18 pensioners between October 1992 and November 2009. The case was adjourned until Tuesday.