EXCLUSIVE Monster brought to justice by cop who just wouldn’t give up
DETECTIVE Sergeant Rachael Foy has spent the past four years juggling motherhood with chasing paedophiles.
Some nights she has managed to get home in time to cook tea for her two young daughters, read them a bedtime story and tuck them into bed.
On other nights, the dedicated cop, who is married to a fellow officer, worked round the clock to catch one of the UK’S most prolific child abusers.
Carson Grimes had dodged justice for decades as officers failed to take the stories of his young victims seriously.
But Rachael, 37, refused to give up – and on Wednesday, the monster will finally be sentenced for 11 rapes and 25 other serious sexual offences.
And the gripping story will be told in a Channel 4 documentary tomorrow.
Rachael said: “It’s a hard juggling act to manage the job and your family.
“This case has been the hardest I have dealt with – I think probably the biggest of my career.
Vulnerable
“I’ve heard things I’ll never unhear. To look at his house
– a normal house on a normal suburban street – it’s hard to imagine the horrors that occurred there.”
Depraved Grimes, 65, posed as a friend to vulnerable boys and girls aged five to 15 so that he could abuse them.
Described in court as “a modern-day Fagin character”, he lured them to his house in Luton, Bedfordshire, and handed out free drugs and alcohol.
It was September 2017 when Rachael got the call that prompted the breakthrough investigation. A 30-year-old prisoner had come forward to reveal that he had been assaulted by Grimes in 2002, aged 14.
The case had been investigated by Bedfordshire Police at the time but was thrown out of court at the first hearing due to lack of evidence.
But Rachael was not deterred. And as she started digging, she discovered Grimes had been acquitted in a 2008 case. Forensic evidence pointed to the assault but he claimed it was consensual.
She said: “There wasn’t very much appetite to reopen the investigation.
“At the time, I was a detective constable so I had to go to my senior to try to reopen the case. I had to work during the evenings and overtime to try to get it to a place where I could say, ‘Actually, we’ve missed something here.’
“I requested all of the archives and had a look at what had happened with
the investigation. There was a mountain of material and other statements in relation to other boys that had also been sexually abused by the same man. It was clear there’d been decades of abuse. Several of the victims had made statements but they were all in jail and well known to police.
“The police and the CPS thought they were not believable because of their previous convictions and as a result there was no realistic prospect of conviction.
“I think it was just a different attitude, a different culture, back then. I was guilty of it too. We saw these boys come in and out of custody all the time. They were
Grimes threatened them, he had weapons in
his house
nicking, using drugs, many came from unsupportive backgrounds. And we never stopped to ask why.
“It’s only in hindsight, when you’re in your thirties with your own kids, you look back and realise, ‘Of course that was happening.’”
Her work led to Operation Ceroc, the largest historical child investigation in Bedfordshire’s history.
Traumatised
And she discovered that Grimes had groomed up to 30 potential victims, inviting them to his home.
After spiking their drinks with sedatives, he assaulted them then threatened them with knives and guns to make sure they did not tell police.
“The traumatised youngsters, who came from broken homes or were in care, ended up turning to crime.
Rachael said: “The thing about Grimes is that because all these kids were so vulnerable, he had an almost God-like complex to him. He had given them alcohol, drugs, money and a place to stay. He told them all these stories, he threatened them, he had weapons in the house.
“They thought he was untouchable, so they never went to the authorities. But for each person Grimes has abused, the ripple effects were massive. The crimes they’ve committed have cost Bedfordshire Police and society hundreds of thousands of pounds.”
As there was no forensic evidence,
Rachael’s best chance of success was tracking down the victims and persuading them to appear in court. In the end, nine turned up.
One victim was sexually abused by Grimes from the age of four until she was nine, when she told her mother.
Now aged 44, she has told of one occasion when she was lying on the floor wearing a nightie and watching the TV puppet show Fraggle Rock when the fiend raped her.
She previously said: “I would sit on his lap and watch television and things like that, and then he would, like, nuzzle my ear and whisper, ‘You’re so beautiful.’ And he’d say I was special. Then he’d start touching my thighs and move his hand up. He put me on his lap, saying, ‘[You’re] a naughty girl and naughty girls need to be punished.’
“I was scared, I thought I was going to die. It was disgusting.
Closure
“This is part of my closure. It’s like I didn’t disappear off the face of the Earth. I’ve had two heart attacks. I could have been dead but I’m here for this.”
In July, Grimes was found guilty at Luton Crown Court of 36 attacks between 1982 and 2002. Many of the victims, now adults, were in care or living with foster guardians at the time.
Prosecutor Rachael Rowley said: “Grimes’ depraved actions have traumatised his victims. I commend and thank them for their bravery in reliving difficult memories to help bring their attacker to justice.”
Rachael added: “I think this job has changed me in that I certainly look at people differently now. It didn’t necessarily matter before why people were committing these crimes but only that they were committing them and that our responsibility was to the victims.
“But actually, it’s not only to the victims. This job will make me reconsider actually why people are coming into custody and what the history of those people is.”
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