Two men convicted of historic rapes after DNA breakthroughs

Two men have been convicted of rapes committed decades earlier following DNA breakthroughs, in cases that police say show time is no barrier to justice. David Sharp, 66, was found guilty at Leeds Crown Court of raping a student in 1977, while Kennedy Jimmy, 44, was jailed for six years for a rape committed in Bedfordshire in 2006.

Sharp smashed a window to get into the woman's room on her first night in the city, on 2 October 1977. He was wearing a ski mask when he sexually assaulted and raped her, before leaving through the front door of the property. The offence was reported and investigated at the time, but no suspect was identified. It was reinvestigated by the West Yorkshire Police cold case review team in 2023. They established a DNA profile of the offender, but it was not linked to anyone on police databases. However, further enquiries led to a match with one of Sharp's relatives, and a sample taken from him proved he was the culprit. Officers later confirmed Sharp, of Copland Meadows, Totnes, Devon, was living in Leeds at the time of the offence. He was found guilty of one count of rape and one count of indecent assault and will be sentenced on 23 April.

In the second case, Kennedy Jimmy was 25 when he raped a teenage girl in a car park in Shefford, Bedfordshire, on 7 October 2006. Jimmy arrived in a car driven by a friend and waited until the others went inside the shop before pulling the victim into the back of the car and raping her. She managed to escape and ran to a nearby pub, where her friend called the police. Although detectives launched an investigation and carried out extensive lines of enquiry at the time, Jimmy — known to the victim only as 'Kenny' — could not be identified. Following a specialist review of historic rape and sexual assault cases by the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, a forensic analysis revealed a DNA match, which led to his arrest in November 2022. Jimmy, now 44, of Wessex Court, Sunny Bank, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, was convicted of rape after a five-day trial at Luton Crown Court and was sentenced to six years with a lifelong restraining order.

Detectives in both forces said the convictions showed that time is not a barrier to justice. A detective in the Leeds case said: "At the heart of this investigation is a woman who has been scarred by the events of 48 years ago for her whole adult life... I hope that she feels that some form of justice has now been served." A detective in the Bedfordshire case said: "Jimmy thought he had escaped accountability, but advances in forensic science and the determination of our team proved otherwise."