Scotland Yard was accused yesterday of a “total and abject failure” after it admitted that mistakes were made that allowed a serial sex attacker to continue preying on women for four years after first being identified as a suspect.

Crisis meetings have been held at Scotland Yard about the case of Kirk Reid, who was convicted yesterday of carrying out a string of sex attacks. Senior officers are said to be shocked at the incompetence shown by the investigators.

The Times can report that police chiefs view it as a “Lawrence moment” that will lead to a fundamental change in the investigation of sex crimes, just as the botched inquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s death in 1993 changed police attitudes to racist attacks.

Reid, a chef who also refereed women’s football matches, was found guilty of 26 offences, including two rapes, and had previously admitted two indecent assaults. Police have linked him to 71 attacks in the South London area over seven years.

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This case dwarfs anything I have ever experienced in terms of incompetence

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Despite having been narrowed down to one of three suspects early in the investigation, Reid, whose brother is a policeman, was never interviewed and did not have his DNA taken.

His conviction follows the jailing of the taxi driver John Worboys this month for a series of sexual assaults against female passengers. Officers from Wandsworth borough specialist sex crimes unit in South London were involved in investigating both crimes.

A senior officer at Scotland Yard said that colleagues were “embarrassed and staggered” by the blunders in the Reid case. “This is a total and abject failure of management, a momentous disaster,” he told The Times. “It is absolutely staggering and has caused more than a little bit of alarm in the corridors of power at the Yard. This is not about a system failure, it is not hindsight, it is not even making a bad judgment call. It is complete and utter incompetence, no more, no less.”

After the judge criticised the “inadequate work” of officers, Scotland Yard apologised to Reid’s victims — an unprecedented step because it is believed that the Met has never previously apologised to victims of sex crimes.

Commander Mark Simmons, of Territorial Policing, admitted that Reid should have been arrested sooner, adding that he was sorry “those women who were subsequently attacked by him have been caused unnecessary suffering”.

Police had narrowed down Reid, 44, as one of three suspects thought to be responsible for 71 violent assaults on lone women in South London between 2001 and 2008 but detectives failed to take basic steps to eliminate him from their inquiries. Officers from the specialist sex crimes unit in Wandsworth did not interview him, search his house or take a DNA sample. The officers from the Sapphire Unit had become fixated on another suspect — a completely innocent man — although his DNA did not match that of the attacker and he was never picked out of an ID parade.

Although records are no longer kept, The Times has learnt that police estimate Reid was logged acting suspiciously in his car in the early hours of the morning at least 30 times in the years preceding his arrest.

In January 2004 a man dialled 999 to say that a woman was being attacked and gave the suspect’s registration number but police never traced the owner. A month later a woman police constable saw Reid beeping his horn at lone women. She put his registration into the system and saw that it was the same as that in the emergency call.

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