The case of the serial rapist Kirk Reid comes only weeks after the conviction of John Worboys, the taxi driver who was convicted of a series of sexual assaults against female passengers. Both are violent men who have been imprisoned for serious assaults on woman.

Unfortunately, the similarity does not stop there. In both cases the offences were investigated by highly trained police at Wandsworth and both investigations were botched. Regrettably, blunders of this type are not new.

In the late 1970s the investigation into Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was dogged by errors. The size of the investigation overwhelmed the team, key intelligence and evidence was lost in the mountain of information received. They also allowed themselves to be led on a wild-goose chase, spending precious time pursuing a “suspect” after receiving hoax tapes and letters.

More recently, the investigation into Colin Stagg, who was wrongly suspected of murdering Rachel Nickell, was dramatically exposed as flawed when the judge at his trial in 1994 dismissed the case on the first day of the hearing. Detectives had convinced themselves that Stagg was responsible when he was innocent all along.

The recurring theme in these cases is that critical information was not acted upon. In Reid maybe the investigators, from Sapphire, a specialist sex crimes unit, closed their mind to certain lines of inquiry, preferring to concentrate on one theory or suspect.

Whatever the reason, the case dwarfs anything I have ever experienced in terms of incompetence and had catastrophic consequences. He was left free to assault dozens of women despite being flagged up as a suspect.

Even two reviews failed to put the investigation back on track.

The public will rightly want to know how a man who has been identified as a suspect is allowed to remain at large for years without being interviewed and eliminated by police — police who have been trained to deal with sex crimes.

It should have been straightforward: identify a suspect, interview him and test his explanation. Why wasn’t this done? It is a question that senior officers have not been able to answer.

What makes this case worse is that we are not talking about just one officer making a mistake. Dozens of detectives must have seen that Reid was a suspect who had not been interviewed, and still did nothing. Those involved have been seriously negligent. The harsh reality is that innocent people became victims of serious assault. The perpetrator should have been caught much earlier.

What should have sounded warning bells was the lack of progress over a prolonged period. Ordinarily this would have prompted more intrusive reviewing at the most senior level.

The case has been sent by Scotland Yard to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and after a lengthy investigation the public will expect heads to roll.

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