Find predator who carried out double sex attack 5yrs ago

ONE man was responsible for two sex attacks carried out in one city more than five years ago.

Advances in the investigation have found a full DNA profile for the person responsible, according to detectives.

In the first attack, a 19-year-old woman was assaulted after she got off a bus in Lanark Road West, Edinburgh, shortly after midnight on August 27, 2015.

A man approached her in the New

‘We have a full DNA profile of the person’

mills Road area and claimed he had a knife. He then led her to a nearby field, where she was raped.

Three weeks earlier, on August 5, a 21-year-old woman was grabbed from behind and sexually assaulted in Craiglockhart Quadrant.

She had got off a bus in Colinton Road shortly before the attack, around 10.30pm.

The man responsible had not been on either bus.

Detectives had a full DNA profile of the suspect for the second attack.

Following a re-investigation last year, it was matched with a forensic sample recovered from the earlier sexual assault. Officers made the link using the DNA 24 technique, which tests 24 pieces of a genetic profile.

Detective Inspector Jon Pleasance, of Edinburgh Police Division, said: ‘We believe we’re looking for the person you’d least suspect – someone whose community wouldn’t think is responsible for such horrific offences.

‘We’re asking everyone: please think back to the summer of 2015. Was there someone in your life – a friend, family member or colleague – who was acting differently?

‘Was their behaviour around this time unusual for them?

‘Don’t dismiss your concerns, no matter how small they seem. We have a full DNA profile of the person responsible so can completely rule people out. Help us find who did this.’

Detectives are asking people to think back to August of that year, a time when the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was taking place.

The Military Tattoo’s theme was East Meets West and marked the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

The DNA database is compiled by police using powers from the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 to take samples of blood, saliva, hair or skin from individuals.