MAN CAUGHT 25 YEARS AFTER RAPE AND SEXUAL ATTACK ON TWO TEENAGE GIRLS
A man from Sheffield who escaped justice for over two decades despite committing serious sexual assaults on two teenage girls was ultimately identified through DNA evidence.Robert Wilson, now 69 years old, committed an 18-year-old's rape in October 1984 after deceiving her into entering his car.
The following year, in June 1985, he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old student at knifepoint.
Wilson, who legally changed his name to Joshua The High Priest, was sentenced to 17 years in prison in 2009 after a cold case team from South Yorkshire Police re-examined old crimes.
Although he was arrested during the second attack in the 1980s, charges were never brought due to insufficient evidence at that time.
It wasn’t until 2009, during his trial at Sheffield Crown Court, that jurors learned about his past convictions, which included a 1986 sentence for raping and robbing a prostitute and a 1993 conviction for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.
The first victim, tricked into his car by believing he was a cab driver, was assaulted in a Broomhall car park after he diverted her from her destination and raped her in the back seat.
She later sought medical and police help but did not want to proceed with prosecution, and she suffered severe emotional distress afterward.
The second assault involved breaking into a flat along with an accomplice, where Priest armed with an ornamental dagger and later a bread knife threatened and sexually assaulted a teenage girl after demanding her boyfriend's money.
Judge Graham Robinson described Priest as unremorseful at sentencing.
The cold case unit began reviewing these cases in 2007, utilising advances in forensic science like DNA profiling which was unavailable at the time of the crimes.
They re-tested evidence from both scenes, eventually linking the attacks to Priest via matches in the national DNA database, revealing he was responsible for both assaults.
At the time of Priest’s conviction, Scientist Mike Wilson said: "DNA profiling technologies have advanced rapidly since the 1980s which allows us to re-examine materials retained from the original investigation.
"Low Copy Number DNA is our most sensitive DNA technique which can yield results from very small samples of DNA as well as old and degraded materials."
