‘Abhorrent’ car park sex attacker is finally jailed

Justice finally caught up with John Clayson when advances in DNA linked him to a series of serious sex offences in Kent car parks. The vile 60-year-old father from Fant was finally caught by a cold case team 26 years after he mercilessly stalked women before attacking them. The retired baker was convicted of a similar offence – an attempted rape in Cornwall – in 1995. In 2015, he was arrested for breaching the conditions of his sex offender registration in relation to the Cornwall offence, and a new sample of his DNA was taken. The breakthrough came when officers reexamined two knifepoint attacks in multi-storey car parks, in 1990, and were able to link to Clayson to one of them. A stocking had been worn on the attacker’s head and forensic experts were able to make a match to Clayson’s DNA profile.

In one of the attacks, in Gravesend, a young woman was forced into her car by a masked man, who told her he had a knife, before molesting her and committing a serious sexual offence. He then ran away. During the trial at Maidstone Crown Court, prosecutor Christopher May said more recent scientific tests found the majority of Clayson’s components present on the stocking and it was 13 million times more likely the DNA came from him.

The court heard another attack happened in 1990 in Chatham, just two weeks before the Gravesend one.

Clayson was cleared of this incident, involving a 19-year-old woman.

Last week, he was convicted of false imprisonment, indecent assault and a more serious sexual offence involving one woman and two serious sex offences involving another woman.

Clayson, of Upper Fant Road, was acquitted of attempted rape, indecent assault and having an offensive weapon in one of the car park ordeals.

He was also facing a further trial on a rape charge but the prosecutor offered no evidence in view of the verdicts.

Clayson had also committed serious sexual offences with a third woman.

On one occasion he held a penknife to her throat so he could commit the offence.

Judge Julian Smith said he was sentencing Clayson for crimes when he was a fit young man, adding: “The nature of your conduct is deeply abhorrent.

“You knew exactly what you wanted and how you were to set about it.

“It seems it would have carried on had you not been caught in Cornwall.”