A paedophile who took viagra and raped a two-year-old girl was identified by his hands after disturbing footage of her ordeal emerged. Detectives studied the vein patterns, scars, patterns of skin creases and pigment and the evidence pointed to Jeremy Oketch.
He eventually pleaded guilty to two sex assaults and two rapes dating back to December 2013.
Detective Colin Larkin suspected he had one of Manchester’s most sickening paedophiles in custody, the Manchester Evening News reports.
Oketch, a trainee pharmacist, had been arrested on suspicion of raping a young girl.
Stomach-churning footage of the small child’s ordeal had been unearthed by Oketch’s partner on two hard drives hidden in a suitcase on top of his wardrobe at his home in Whalley Range.
DCI Larkin believed that Oketch, now 38, was the man in the footage – but the suspect was giving ‘no comment’ during interviews.
Prosecutors said there was enough evidence for Oketch to be charged with possessing indecent images of child abuse – but that would have been nowhere near the punishment police believed he deserved.
The detective needed more to get his man.
That’s when he asked for help from the National Crime Agency and was put in touch with Professor Sue Black, then at the University of Dundee, and her pioneering forensic team.
For the last fourteen years, Professor Black has been developing painstakingly accurate processes for identifying the unique features of the human hand.
When identifying offenders from videos, detectives might not have DNA or the fingerprint evidence to place them at the scene, and they may not have footage of the offender’s face.
But Prof Black’s work means that if police have images or video of a perpetrator’s hands, this can be analysed to the finest detail, then compared to a suspect, before the conclusions are presented in court as expert evidence.
The better the quality of image, the more conclusive Prof Black and her team can be about their hand comparisons.
In the Oketch case the footage was crystal clear – but that came at a price.
“The images were so incredibly graphic,” said Prof Black. “They were truly awful, some of the worst I’ve ever seen. “It’s hard for the staff – we’re a tight team, there’s three of us. “We talk about it afterwards and keep an eye on each other. But we’ve done so many of them now – we just have a job to do.”
The first task, in the Oketch case, was to establish whether the same perpetrator could be identified in the two videos that were recovered.
“We compared the anatomy of the hands in video 1 and video 2,” said Prof Black.
“We were able to find similar vein patterns, scars, patterns of skin creases, there was evidence of a pigment condition called melanonychia on one of his ring fingers. Everything we found pointed to the same offender.
“Then we looked at the suspect’s anatomy and asked ‘if they are the same person, we should expect to be able to find the same anatomical features’.
“All of the features – the vein patterns, the skin creases, the scars, the presence of melanonychia – everything matches.”
It was the blockbuster evidence DCI Larkin needed.
Oketch ended up pleading guilty to two sex assaults and two rapes dating back to December 2013.
He was jailed for 15 years, and will not be released unless and until the Parole Board deem safe to do so.
Culled from Mirror Online
