Moment one of London’s worst sex predators is snared using counter terror tactics

Detectives deploying counter-terrorism tactics against London’s worst sex predators have secured 24 convictions in eight months.

A Metropolitan Police project ranked the 100 most dangerous male and female offenders targeting women and girls to transform the way rape and sexual assault is investigated.

They come from a cohort of more than 35,000 people accused of domestic or sex violence in the capital in just 12 months.

Dramatic police body-worn footage released on Wednesday shows the moment rapist and prolific stalker Marcelino Goncalves, 55, from Acton, is arrested.

He tearfully pleads with officers: “No I haven’t done anything. I swear to God. It’s a lie.”

Passers-by had seen Goncalves, 55, attack a woman known to him in the street.

The victim then disclosed a long history of abuse, like burning her with a cigarette when she refused sex and punching her in the face.

Goncalves even continued to target her while on remand, making 15 calls from prison.

He was convicted of rape, actual bodily harm and coercive behaviour last month and will be sentenced on June 7.

The Met’s intelligence unit uses the Cambridge Crime Harm Index to help draw up a V100 chart of domestic, sex, stalking and violent crime suspects mirroring methods used by organised and anti-terror squads.

At any one time four or five women, often in same sex relationships, are on the list.

Commander Ben Russell, leading the new initiative, said domestic abuse disproportionately affects women from ethnic minorities.

In addition to the 24 convictions, there have been 60 arrests, 33 charged and 23 civil orders to stop offending.

Since April 2, horrific violence has seen 38-year-old Sarah Mayhew’s body dumped in a Croydon park, a young woman fatally stabbed at her Bayswater home and Kulsuma Akter, 27, murdered as she pushed her baby in a pram in Bradford.

Cmdr Russell added: “What we’re saying is the same tactics we deploy to stop terrorists and organised crime, we should be using that to stop the violence that we’ve heard about and seen in the news in the past week.

“That violence is real and totally unacceptable. It is affecting people in London and this country day in, day out.

“The Met is determined to stop predators and bring them to justice.”

Police went after some perpetrators for other crimes - including drug possession and dealing - to “take them off the streets” if victims struggled to support prosecutions.

Detective Chief Superintendent Angela Craggs, the Met’s lead for rape and sexual assault, said: “When we allocate cases into our intelligence teams across London, they look at whole lifetime of the offender.

“It really jumps off the page. What we see is a list of really serious offending, often over many years.”

The tactic is being used as Scotland Yard aims to rebuild its reputation after a series of scandals and Baroness Louise Casey’s savage review found it was institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic.