On the trail of Fox, the armed rapist who terrorised Britain in the 1980s

THome is normally considered a safe place, but in the hot and stormy summer of 1984, no one in the Home Counties felt safe from the serial rapist known as “Fox”.

Malcolm Fairley, 32, broke into homes in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire and waited for married couples to return, wearing a mask made from trousers with holes cut out in the seat for eyes and a mouth, and holding a shotgun.

Last week the Ministry of Justice confirmed that Fairley, one of modern Britain’s most horrific and sinister criminals, had died in Hull Prison. He was 72 years old.

The horror of his attacks still lives in the memories of his victims and the investigators who caught him. “It was 40 years ago, but