Today’s story begins in Southend-on-Sea, a place where I have spent plenty of time and know well. It’s about forty miles east of London on the coast, looking over the Thames Estuary.
When we pick up the story on Monday 31st August 1998 it was the end of the Bank Holiday weekend, and as always back then in Southend it had been busy at the various pubs and clubs, including the legendary TOTS which sadly shut its doors for good in 2019. By the early hours Southend was starting to quieten down and the streets were empty, as many of the revellers from the weekend had work or school the next day.
One fifteen-year-old teenager was walking home from a night out on a residential street, when she heard something behind her. Before she could react, she felt a hand over her mouth and a man said to her in a very calm voice, “Do as I say and don’t scream. I’m not going to rape you”. The terrified teenager was dragged into a car park by the man and ordered to strip off her clothes, before being subjected to the most awful assault and rape. It was a terrifying ordeal which lasted over an hour. When the attack was finished, the man behaved very oddly, appearing to cry and showing concern for his victim. He helped the teenager put her clothes back on and said to her, “what are you going to do when you get back home’. She replied, “I’m going to have a bath”. The rapist responded by saying, ‘Yeah, you are going to wash every trace of me off you’. He then said, “I just want a kiss and cuddle before I go.” In shock at what had happened, she had no choice but to comply.
Then two weeks later, there was another incident in Southend town centre at about 9.45pm. A couple had had an argument, and the man stormed off ahead as the pair were going under an underpass. When the woman was half-way through, a man attacked her from behind placing his hand over her mouth and saying, “Scream and I’ll kill you.” As he tried to drag her away into the nearby waste ground, fortunately the woman’s boyfriend saw what was happening and raced back which stopped the attacker in his tracks. But the attacker was scarily confident and tried to dominate them both as he let go of the woman and calmly told them: “don’t tell anyone about this or go to the police or I’ll kill you”. At the time they had no doubt at all that he meant it as the attacked calmly walked off into the night.
Then just an hour later, a couple of miles away from the centre of Southend, it seemed like the same man had struck again. Another young woman was walking down a residential street when a man approached her from behind and placed his hand over her mouth saying: “Keep your eyes shut. I’m not going to rape you, but if you try to run, I will kill you in one movement.” This time the attacker didn’t rape this woman, but he put her through an utterly terrifying serious and sustained sexual assault.
All three attacks were reported to the police who were convinced that it was the same man due to the similarities in each attack. The manner of the assaults where he attacked young women from behind, the clothes he was wearing, the descriptions given and the words he used all suggested that this was the work of one offender.
But five hours later, as detectives in Essex were working on finding the man, it seemed like he had struck again. This time, it wasn’t in Southend but in St Johns Wood in North London, when in the early hours of the morning a casino croupier was attacked as she was heading home. She was walking down the High Street when she heard a man kicking a bottle behind her, but at the time there were other people around, so she didn’t pay too much attention to this man. But a few minutes later when she was walking down a quieter street, the man attacked, again from behind with his hand over her mouth. Once the assault was over, the attacker again displayed very strange behaviour as he cuddled the woman and said to her: “You are so gorgeous you are. This is so out of order I am sorry. So sorry. Where do girls like you hide. If I had a girl like you, I would wrap you up in cotton wool and you would want for nothing.”
The woman made it home where her husband was sleeping. She sat on the bed in shock, replaying what had happened in her mind. She thought that she was strong and that she could just have a bath, go to bed and never think about it again. But she knew she couldn’t do this because even though she felt that she was strong and thought she would be able to get through it, she knew there would be other women who he would attack who wouldn’t get through the ordeal. So, she went to the police.
For detectives, this attack changed the whole complexion of the investigation. They now had an offender who was capable of carrying out three attacks in one evening – with this level of offending, it was highly likely that he would attack again. And so far, he hadn’t used violence, but they feared this could change if he faced real resistance. And the other issue is the investigation was no longer confined to the Southend area. What was the connection with north-west London?
Then police in Essex were made aware of another similar rape, which had occurred on the south coast in Brighton, two days before the first attack in Southend. An eighteen-year-old woman was attacked from behind, and as the attacker put his hand over her mouth, he said to her: “Don’t cry or I will kill you. If I hit you, you will be unconscious and then I can then do whatever I want to you. This isn’t rape. If you scream, I will kill you.” It was the same words and again, the man had cried afterwards and almost wanted the victim to like him. It had to be the same man responsible for the other four attacks. Police in Essex went to the specialist unit in the Met Police, SO11, to see if there had been other attacks with the same traits elsewhere in the UK or beyond. Just what were they looking at here?
There were no further reported attacks until 28 October, in Bethnal Green, East London when another young woman was raped. And by November, detectives at Scotland Yard had linked another twelve serious sexual attacks to the same man – five they were absolutely certain was him and the other seven were highly likely. And these were just the attacks which had been reported.
These offences had been in London and Essex and the police set up a joint operation named Operation Monarch – they love to name an operation don’t they. It was headed by experienced Met Police Commander Paddy Tompkins, with a senior detective from Essex police as his deputy and officers from where the other attacks had taken place involved. They looked at profiles for this offender who due to his need to control the victim, they suspected really felt inadequate in other parts of his life. What was more useful in finding the man was the knowledge that he was also forensically aware, which led detectives to believe that he might have previous sexual convictions. It was likely he was already known to law enforcement.
Their job was a difficult one. They needed to warn the public that this man was on the loose as he was so dangerous, but they didn’t want to frighten them. It is a fine balance. And more than this, they needed the help of the public to catch this man. In this mainly pre-internet time, the police strategy was a press launch on 14 December, before a reconstruction was shown on Crimewatch the following day – back before they messed with the format of the show and destroyed it. The team at Monarch were convinced that someone close to him must know who this was and even if they weren’t sure, a Crimewatch reconstruction would leave family members or close friends with strong suspicions. And they hoped that would be enough for them to contact the programme.
But before this could go ahead, there was another attack. At about 5.45pm on Friday 11 December in the Baker Street area of central London, a woman got off the tube after finishing work and headed to her home just five minutes away. As she put her key into the lobby of the block of flats where she lived, a man raced past her into the building, but this wasn’t so uncommon as there were lots of flats in the block. But as she approached the door to her flat, the same man pounced and sexually assaulted her in her home and took her bank card. But the woman had given him the wrong number so when he tried to get cash later that evening, he was unsuccessful. But the attempt at the cashpoint was caught on camera and although the image wasn’t perfect, it was another piece of the jigsaw which could help if the Crimewatch appeal didn’t produce the hoped-for results.
Kevin Baker was watching Crimewatch that evening and as soon as he saw the E-fit picture he knew that the attacker was his brother, Richard. The two were close, but he still felt he had to call the programme. He told officers that his brother, Richard, had a history of sexual offences and that he had been staying with their mum in Bodmin, Cornwall, these last few days but as he spoke, his brother was on a coach from Cornwall to Heathrow, where he planned to fly back out to Torremolinos that evening. He explained that Richard Baker had worked in the Spanish resort extensively as a DJ and had lots of contacts there.
Officers from the Met were dispatched to Heathrow coach station to arrest Baker on his arrival. Baker didn’t put up a fuss and told them he knew nothing about the sexual assault charge from the attack in Baker Street the previous Friday. With Baker in custody, detectives were able to look at his criminal record – and it painted a very unpleasant picture of the man they had in custody.
Baker had first been convicted of rape when he was twenty-four. This offence occurred in 1987, when he was sentenced to six years imprisonment at Exeter crown court for raping a nineteen-year-old in Bideford, north Devon. His brother, Kevin – who had phoned the Crimewatch programme – was also jailed for four years in relation to this attack after the pair raped the girl in a tree-lined drive near Bideford rectory.
Kevin later spoke about what happened. I can’t tell you for sure if what he says is true or not, but this is what he told the Daily Mail newspaper back in 2018:
“My involvement in the 1987 incident will haunt and hound me for the rest of my life. Yes, I did drive the vehicle away from one of his crimes in 1987 when I was a young man. I voluntarily told the police that the person they were looking for was Richard Anthony Baker and I was the driver of the vehicle. I have pleaded my innocence from that day to this, but I do admit to driving the van away from the scene, unknowingly. I did not know he had jumped out on a girl and dragged her to the ground outside a vicarage. People are saying I “helped him” but “helping him” was driving the vehicle away. I wasn’t there. I went back to pick the van up. The very next day I saw a report on the news of a rape that had been committed in north Devon with a brown corduroy jacket left at the scene with DNA samples on it. I knew that jacket was my brother’s. I went to the police station in Bodmin voluntarily on the same night to tell them”.
Whatever Kevin’s involvement was or wasn’t, there is no doubt that Richard Baker was guilty of the rape, and he was sent down for this crime. A year after his release from prison, he was back in court in Bristol, accused of raping a sex worker. His victim didn’t turn up at court for the hearing, so Baker was acquitted of this crime.
From here, he moved further south to Plymouth. By now he was earning extra money in addition to his day job by DJing and Baker was the resident DJ at a Nightclub in Union Street, near the naval dockyards. Baker was described at this time as physically attractive, charming and very arrogant. A bouncer recalled him well from this club saying: “He was Jack The Lad. Several times I caught him having sex with a girl in a corner of the club.” And once again, he was charged with the rape of another sex worker. Although he was cleared of the crime, he was convicted of trying to bribe the victim of the attack with £6,500 not to testify against him in court.
He was in court again soon afterwards after having unlawful sex with a fifteen-year-old teenager on work experience at an insurance office where he sold pensions. After first claiming he thought she was seventeen, Baker changed his plea to guilty. Baker was sent to prison again, where he served four years and, on his release, he left the country and headed to Torremelinos in Spain, an area back then known for its relaxed vibe and nightlife. A place where people went to have fun in the sunshine. In Spain, he worked at the Hotel Torremolinos Beach Club providing entertainment during the day and DJing into the early hours. He certainly had a number of consensual sexual encounters in Spain, but here again he faced allegations of rape, using the drug rohypnol to render his victim’s unconscious.
Most of those women he attacked didn’t report what had happened, but a number did, and the Spanish police investigated a string of rape allegations involving Baker. One of these alleged offences was made by three Swedish holidaymakers. One of the women who was aged twenty, explained what happened saying:
“He came up and offered to buy a drink. He seemed just an ordinary guy – good-looking and smartly dressed in a shirt and trousers. He even warned us about other guys. He said there were a lot of bad guys, and we should be careful.” During the evening, she told how she noticed a grainy substance in the bottom of her glass, but the next thing she remembered is waking up, semi-naked with her friend in Baker’s flat. Spanish police arrested Baker but, like similar reports to the police in Spain, the charges were dropped because of lack of evidence.
Detectives from Operation Monarch spoke to police officers on the Costa del Sol who told how Baker was known to expose himself indecently, and there had been angry confrontations when the dads of young holidaymakers accused him of acting inappropriately with their daughters. He was sacked as an entertainer due to the number of complaints about him.
It was not until Baker turned up at Torremolinos police station in November 1997 looking to extend his work permit that local police knew they had a serial rapist living in their community. In August that year, they had received a fax from Interpol, giving them advance warning that a dangerous rapist called Richard Baker could be heading to their part of Spain. As a popular holiday resort, Torremolinos police were used to receiving hundreds of faxes alerting them to all sorts of criminals, but the prospect of a serial rapist lurking in the resort’s clubs and bars was a serious cause for concern for them and it turned out to be a very real one.
Baker told friends in Spain that he did use rohypnol but only for his own use to counteract his cocaine abuse. “It was for me only. It was to help me sleep,” he said. “I would take cocaine to get me through the DJ-ing and the long nights. But when I wanted to sleep it would be morning and the families would be by the pool. It would be really noisy, and I could not sleep. So I took Rohypnol. I never used it on anyone else. I didn’t need to use any drugs,” he boasted. “I could have any woman I wanted.”
Back in Britain from Spain, Baker tried to break into TV. But he had little success. And it was soon after that he began his campaign of terror. When interviewed by police, his brother Kevin, a father of four, told them why he had called police after seeing the appeal on Crimewatch “I had no alternative. I saw him use cocaine and I knew he had rohypnol. I just knew he was raping girls. Richard is my brother and I love him. But I am a father. It could have been my daughter he was attacking.”
Let’s get back to December 1998 and how Baker behaved after he was arrested at Heathrow coach station. He tried to tell detectives that he was at his mums in Bodmin the previous Friday when the attack in Baker Street happened. But pills in his bag from a pharmacy in Essex were dated 11 December, so officers knew full well that he was lying. During the series of police interviews, Baker responded “no comment” to every question he was asked.
There was some DNA from the attacks, and this took a bit longer to be analysed compared to today, but when the tests came back, there was a clear match to Baker. Detectives had been very sure they had their man before but now they were certain, and despite his unwillingness to admit everything, they believed they had enough to secure a conviction in court. It was a priority for Operation Monarch that all the victims of his attacks were kept informed of developments all the way through the investigation. And due to the lack of information he provided in interviews, this meant that seven of the women he had attacked, would have to give evidence in court and re-live the terrible ordeal they had gone through.
Thirty-four-year-old Richard Baker stood in the dock at the Old Bailey. He admitted four indecent assaults and one assault occasioning actual bodily harm but pleaded not guilty to the other charges he faced. In court, on one occasion out of the hearing of the jury, he said he had “assaulted quite a lot of women”, and that originally, he had twenty-two charges against him but that “nine just went out of the way.” When the jury were not present, the arrogance and swagger was always there.
When the jury was in court, he told how he preyed on women out alone at night and said: “I terrified these poor girls. I just wanted to be totally, totally in control. I tried to terrorise my victims, tried to put so much fear into them. I just wanted to see their reaction, wanted to be in control, wanted to make sure they didn’t resist me and put up a fight or struggle.” He told the court he looked for slim brunettes aged about twenty who were on their own and said how he grabbed them around the throat from behind and put them in a state of terror by threatening to rape or kill them.
It was a harrowing case for the jury and those in the public gallery, but most of all for the victims of Baker who gave evidence. The Judge praised the courage and dignity of the seven victims, including two schoolgirls who gave evidence. Let me provide just a brief summary from five of their witness statements just to provide the smallest indication of how Baker’s actions devastated their lives.
- Witness one, aged 22:Frightened of being in the dark and in her own home.
- Witness two, aged 35:
Feels unsafe, particularly at night. Personal life badly affected. - Witness three, aged 18:
Had to leave her home and give up her job as a result of Baker’s attack. He knew where she lived and was not caught until a long time after the attack. Says she is still frightened. - Witness four, aged 15:
Says the rape affected her life, her mind, her personality and her day-to-day existence more than she could ever imagine. She has nightmares and is frightened of walking on her own. Her schoolwork has been affected and she describes herself as feeling ‘nothing but a teenage rape victim’. - Witness Five, aged 22:
Has been unable to stay in the flat where she was attacked. The attack ‘totally destroyed’ her life, her health has been affected and she is frightened to go out.
And of course, the real and full effects on all of the victims of Baker across their lives can never properly be put into words.
The jury of five men and seven women took just over four hours to unanimously find Baker guilty on all ten counts he faced. The Judge jailed Baker for life, giving him four life sentences. After reading out the sentence, the judge said: “I think you couldn’t care less or have no understanding of the effects your actions had on your victims. You treat women with utter contempt. You are a truly depraved and wicked man. You present a serious and significant risk of further sexual offending.” After passing sentence, the judge took the time to praise Baker’s brother Kevin for shopping his brother by putting the “public’s interest above that of the family”. Baker sobbed loudly whilst the judge passed his sentence and again burst into tears as he was led from the dock of the Old Bailey by two prison officers.
After the trial, Detective Superintendent David Bright, the senior investigating officer for Essex Police said: “If I had to describe a rapist, Baker certainly wouldn’t fit the mould. He is very clean cut, he has got intelligence, he was very good at his job. He can speak Spanish; he can speak some German. He is learned on a number of things.”
It was also clear the detectives felt there were many more victims, both in the UK and Spain who had been attacked by Baker and not seen justice. It is thought this number could be in the 100’s. It is believed that Baker would almost certainly have killed if he had not been arrested while trying to return to Spain where he had been talking of buying a bar. The lead detective in Spain said: “To my mind, there is no doubt that Baker is a psychopath with an exaggerated sex drive and is obsessed with dominating women. That is why he used Rohypnol to subdue them. In my thirty years as a police officer, I have never been so worried about the actions of one individual as I was about Richard Baker. He is a time bomb. I am convinced that one day he would have killed.”
Baker spoke to the Mirror newspaper in a twenty-minute phone call after the trial when he was in Belmarsh prison. I don’t want to speak too much about it, as the interview was very up and down where one minute Baker seemed to be bragging and the next apologetic and emotional. But I think there are some parts worth highlighting, so let’s get into a bit of it.
He admitted that he was guilty of all the offences he denied in court. “I did everything the police said,” he sobbed. “I don’t know why I pleaded not guilty. I don’t know why I put those poor girls through the ordeal of giving evidence. Maybe I am sick.” He added: “If I cannot be cured, I never want to be released from prison. For 98 per cent of the time I am a decent, normal human being. But for two per cent of the time I go haywire and horrific things happen.”
He told how he was abused as a child after he and his older brother Kevin went to live with their mum when his parents’ marriage broke up. “I suffered two years of sex abuse at the hands of an older boy, a neighbour,” he sobbed down the phone. He would babysit for us. I was only eight at the time. Nobody knew what was going on.” He claimed that this is what changed his personality “You know what they say, the abused become the abusers. What I have done to these girls is the same as what was done to me. That is not a reason to attack them – but it may help people to understand me.”
Maybe this is true, and it is a partial explanation for how he behaved. But I am not so sure. Baker was described by Scotland Yard Commander Paddy Tomkins, who led the investigation into his capture as “cynical, exploitative and without remorse”. This whole interview with The Mirror strikes me as really all about Baker and excuses for his behaviour rather than any remorse. I wonder if you agree?
In 2016, Baker was back in the news when another six years was added to his sentence after a jury found him guilty of nine offences of possessing and making indecent images of children. He was in prison at Chadwick Lodge near Milton Keynes which is renowned for its sex offender treatment. He persuaded a friend and her mum to hide a ten-inch Samsung tablet in the back of a wooden picture frame. He then downloaded hundreds of images showing children as young as four being raped. The court heard he was finally caught when he used it to set up a Facebook account and tried to befriend a therapist. Even when caught he refused to give staff the Pin number because he said it contained naked pictures of his girlfriend and revolutionary, unpatented designs for an electric car worth millions. When forensic experts got into the tablet, they found thirty bookmarks along with website browsing history. One of the bookmarks was called “best jailbait ever”. Another one was called “illegal porn”.’
The Judge told Baker: “I believe you will rape again if you are released… You are obsessed with sex and your interest has now moved to children. I think you are one of the most dangerous men I have ever had the displeasure of trying.” As Baker was led away from the court he said: ‘I swear on my mum’s life I didn’t do it.’
In 2021, fifty-six-year-old Baker was pushing for parole for the third time, but the Parole Board decided it was “not satisfied that Mr Baker was suitable for release. Although Mr Baker’s prison conduct had been generally good, there was also broad agreement amongst all the witnesses that he was not yet suitable to be released on licence. And he was not recommended for transfer to an open prison.” Although he had taken part in work to address his behaviour while in jail, it was decided more work was ‘necessary’ as there had been “little progress” since the last review.
So, what do you make of what we have heard today?
There is so much we can look at from this story today, but what hit me is the reaction of one of the officers working on the case who had lived the case 24/7 when he first set eyes on Baker in his prison cell. He said, “I was struck by his ordinariness. There are no monsters. There are just normal people who do monstrous things.”
Baker’s Dad after the trial said: “I feel very, very sorry for the victims, but I cannot help but think that this perhaps could have been avoided.”
However, Baker’s brother Kevin told how his brother failed to take help when he was offered it. “He now understands that he has something wrong, but he knew that ten years ago. Unfortunately for him he did not take the help that was needed,” he said. “He always wanted to be famous. He has certainly got that now.”
But of course, our thoughts today have nothing to do with Baker – frankly, if he is never released that is just fine with me. It is with all those women who were attacked by him over a number of years – and their loved ones who have also suffered. We can just hope that despite the dreadful ordeals they all suffered, they have been able to move forward with their lives.
If you, or someone you know, have been a victim of sexual violence, there are organisations like Rape Crisis who can offer support. The Samaritans phone line is free to call 24 hours a day, every day. They offer a safe place for you to talk any time you like, in your own way – about whatever’s getting to you. You can be anonymous, and they won’t judge you or tell you what to do. You can call The Samaritans for free on 116123.
This story was released as episode 422 of the UK True Crime Podcast, ‘The predator DJ’. The sources used for this story are below:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/jun/18/3
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/347780.stm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2uygIQDpMc