Serial rapist brought to justice for offence in 1991
Groundbreaking advances in forensic science have today helped detectives bring a serial rapist to justice for a horrific offence committed almost three decades ago.
Raymond Manners, 56, plead guilty at Leeds Crown Court on Tuesday 9 May to the rape, committed on 23 February 1991 in the Chapeltown area of Leeds.
Manners went into the victim's house and then raped her before making off.
Officers at the time were unable to identify the culprit but the case was later reviewed by the Operation Recall team - the unit set up to specifically look at previously unsolved cases involving sexual assault.
The team spotted similarities between this case and two other unsolved rapes dating back to 1979.
In 2012 the Recall team successfully linked Manners through forensic evidence to the 1979 rapes and he was sentenced to 10 years for the crimes. He was, however, released without charge in relation to the 1991 offence as the forensic evidence available did not meet the necessary prosecuting criteria.
After advances in forensic techniques and with Manners safely in prison officers in 2016 again reviewed the 1991 offence.
By using the new DNA17 profiling technique it was successfully proved that he was well represented in a forensic sample left at the crime scene, with a further seven strands of his DNA identified.
Due to the complexity of the result, however, it was not possible to provide a statistical likelihood of the sample being his. The decision was taken therefore to use the specialist statistical evaluation tool LiRa to get a result.
Manners was then brought from prison and arrested and interviewed about the offence. He denied being responsible and provided a further DNA sample for the LiRa evaluation.
In October 2016 forensic scientists came back with the news the team were hoping for - the LiRa tool gave the result that it was in excess of a billion times more likely that the DNA did belong to Manners.
He was then charged with the offence in March 2017 and was today sentenced to 12 years for the offence.
Timeline:
1979 - Manners commits two rapes but neither case is solved
1991 - Manners commits another rape but detectives are unable to solve the case
2006 - The 1979 cases are reviewed by the Operation Recall team and similarities with the 1991 rape are found. Further forensic work is carried out and in
2012 - Manners is arrested and charged for the 1979 rapes but the evidence for the 1991 offence is deemed not to be strong enough to meet the prosecution criteria.
2016 - With further scientific breakthroughs the evidence in the 1991 offence is reviewed again. This time, the evidence is strong enough. Manners ends up admitting the offence
25 May 2017 - Manners, already serving 10 years for the 1979 offences, is sentenced to an additional 12 years inside.