DNA error left sex attacker at large

By Stuart Richards
BBC News

Campbell was at large for four years due to a DNA blunder by police

Convicted rapist Mark Campbell voluntarily gave a DNA sample to police after being interviewed over alleged "peeping Tom" activity in September 2002.

But a mistake meant it was left untested for four years, and Campbell committed further sex attacks in the Chichester and Bognor Regis areas of West Sussex.

Now, following his conviction on Monday of 13 charges including rape, sexual assault and indecent assault offences, Sussex Police have formally apologised to his victims that he was able to continue preying on girls and young women.

The force said there were "no excuses" that the DNA taken from Campbell was not sent for analysis through a national database until 2006.

Nearly half the offences the 38-year-old welder carried out, including two rapes, were in the four years it took for that to happen.

Lessons learned

Sussex Police's extensive Operation Bobcat inquiry into a serial sex attacker had been "wound down" three months before the DNA sample was originally taken, because the offences "appeared to have stopped".

In fact, Campbell, of Grenville Gardens, Donnington, Chichester, went on to commit two more rapes, one sexual assault and one attempted indecent assault, as well as two burglaries which related to computers stolen from the residences of single young women.

It was only when Operation Bobcat was reviewed by detectives in October 2006 that Campbell was arrested - and then offences over a six-year period, from 1998 to 2004, were linked to him.

Assistant Chief Constable Jeremy Paine admitted: "There are no excuses.

"Having taken this particular [DNA] sample, we didn't send it off for processing.

"That had serious consequences in that Campbell was at large for four years longer than he should have been.

"It should not have happened and we are very sorry that it did.

"We have done everything we can to learn the lessons so that nothing like it can happen again."

I just hate him for what he's done and what he's put me through Victim speaking on Crimewatch

ACC Paine explained that because Campbell was not actually charged with any offence over the "peeping Tom" allegations, his DNA could not at the time be placed on the national database.

"Were he to be arrested in similar circumstances now, his DNA would automatically be added to the database and the match would be made at once," he said.

Sussex Police said Campbell had been in custody ever since his arrest.

The DNA mistakes were put down to "procedural and human error", and a senior police officer and a member of police staff have "received formal words of advice".

But that will come as scant consolation to Campbell's many victims, the first of whom was indecently assaulted in her home in Bognor Regis as her three children slept upstairs in February 1998.

His youngest victim, a 12-year-old girl, was dragged into bushes and was held against her will as she walked home from school in Chichester in September 1999.

After that Campbell committed three indecent assaults, in October 1999, and two in February 2000, before he carried out his first rape.

In an attack in May 2000, he got into a 21-year-old woman's bedroom in the village of Walberton, near Bognor Regis.

The victim relived her ordeal in an appeal on the BBC's Crimewatch programme, saying she had been "absolutely petrified... my heart was beating really hard and really fast".

And she said that when Campbell told her he had a knife she "just thought I was dead, I honestly did".

"I just laid there and shut my eyes and just wished everything away," she added.

"It just makes you feel awful, just makes you feel dirty, just makes you feel used and abused really.

"I just hate him for what he's done and what he's put me through."

Van rapes

Campbell also raped two 15-year-old friends - who he attacked one after the other in his van in August 2004.

He was also found guilty of a sexual assault in 2004; two counts of false imprisonment in September 1999 and April 2000; two burglaries; and one count of attempted indecent assault in June 2003.

However he was cleared of one sexual assault in May 2004, and one count of indecent assault.

ACC Paine said of Campbell's victims: "We are grateful for their understanding and continued support for this investigation.

"Those who gave evidence against him showed great courage.

"We apologise to those women who became victims of Campbell while his DNA sample remained unprocessed."

And ACC Paine added that any other potential victims who had never come forward were urged to "contact us, even at this late stage".