An undercover rookie police officer who helped snare the Clifton Rapist has spoken about her role in busting the vile attacker and getting someone ‘so evil off the streets’.
In the late 1970s, women in the Clifton, Redland and Westbury Park areas of Bristol were terrorised by the man who prowled the streets looking for victims.
Ronald Evans, a convicted murderer and rapist who is now 83, was the man behind the attacks who had moved to Bristol after being released from prison.
Over an 18-month period, seven women were attacked and sexually assaulted, many as they walked home at night.
As the attacks became more serious, students were warned not to walk alone at night.
Male police officers dressed up in long blonde wigs, stockings, high heeled shoes and padded bras and walked the city streets in a bid to snare the rapist.
Female police officers – some aged just 18 – were also sent out in plain clothes as part of Operation Argus.
Night after night the team of officers went out hoping to catch the attacker, who they believed drove a yellow Ford Capri, and in the early hours of March 23 1979 Evans fell into their honeytrap.
PC Michelle Leonard, then aged 24, was grabbed by an unsuspecting Evans and told ‘don’t scream or I’ll kill you’.
Ronald Evans, who became known as the ‘Clifton Rapist’ following a series of sex attacks in the Bristol Downs in the 1970s
In the late 1970s, women in the Clifton, Redland and Westbury Park areas of Bristol were terrorised by the man who prowled the streets looking for victims
Michelle Leonard (centre) as a PC while she was in her twenties
She said: ‘There were a lot of demonstrations, leaflets given to the university, to give out to women, not to walk around on their own.
‘I think some of them felt that they had to go around in twos all the time.
‘They didn’t want to do that, they wanted to have the freedom to go about what they were doing without fear of attack.’
She said her role was to walk a pre-planned route near to where previous attacks had taken place.
Officers were spaced out along the route, hidden in gardens and communication was maintained via radios.
‘Any time you felt you were in danger, you could call it off,’ she said.
‘As I’ve walked into Whiteladies Road, the sergeant clocks this yellow Capri, which is in our system, having been around the scene of a rape.
‘He realises the driver is identical to the photofit. That photofit was him.
‘I just got up to Chantry Road when I heard on the radio that the Capri had pulled up to the Good Food, and the ‘Driver was watching Michelle’.
‘I’d got into the dark part of Clifton and I’m just about to cross into Chertsey Road when he said: ‘The driver’s got out of the car. He’s following Michelle on foot’.
‘There was a sort of delay and then it came back ‘Attention everybody, this man is on life licence for murder and has previous convictions for rape’.
‘I had a moment where I thought, should I give up, or should I continue, and I thought no, I’ve got to get under a streetlight.
PC Michelle Leonard, then aged 24, was grabbed by an unsuspecting Evans and told ‘don’t scream or I’ll kill you’. She is pictured left in her twenties
The rapist, who murdered 21-year-old shop worker Kathleen Heathcote in 1963
‘I could hear his footsteps – I was fine while I could hear his footsteps. As soon as I got to the streetlight, I couldn’t hear him anymore.
‘As I turned around, there he was on my shoulder. He grabbed me around the throat, around the arm and said ‘Don’t scream or I’ll kill you’ and began to drag me back into the garden.
‘That was enough for everybody to come out of the bushes, people in the cars all turned up, he realised he had been caught, hit me, pushed me down to the ground and started running.
‘Luckily at the end of the road was another officer, and he was arrested.’
Evans, who was 38 at the time of his arrest, was jailed for committing sexual offences against five women.
He was also convicted of offences against a further two women in 2015, following which he received an additional 10-year jail sentence.
Evans was released after a total of 57 years in November 2018 before re-offending, and being returned to prison in 2023, where – now in his eighties – he remains to this day.
Reflecting on her role in his conviction for the Bristol attacks, Ms Leonard added: ‘I feel quite proud that I’d been involved in such a job, where somebody so evil was taken off the streets.’
Ms Leonard was sharing her story as part of a series celebrating the 50th anniversary of Avon and Somerset Police.
The Parole Board released Evans in January 2019 after more than five decades behind bars for murder and a string of sexual assaults.
Evans served 11 years in prison for Miss Heathcote’s murder and began working as an electrician in Bristol after he was released on life licence in 1975
He moved into a flat in Wembley, northwest London, and began volunteering at a community centre, where he began to ‘target vulnerable women’, prosecutor Lauren Sales said at the Old Bailey.
The prosecutor described Evans as ‘a leopard that cannot change his spots,’ adding: ‘Despite his age, he was and remains a sexual predator.’
Evans met one victim through the community centre then lunged at her thigh and right buttock after persuading her to come to his flat in July last year.
After Evans sat next to her on the couch ‘his demeanour changed’ his ‘eyes glistened’ and he pounced on the woman, the trial heard.
The victim told the court: ‘I thought is this the point where I get killed, hit or attacked, or is this the point that I get forced and raped?’
She added: ‘I think [Evans] groomed me, picked me. He was overly keen to be my friend, telling me he was touchy feely, that ladies love him.
‘Everything seemed to fit into getting me prepared for something he wanted to do to me.’
When police arrested him, they found a purple dildo, condoms and lubricant in his bedside drawer.
The rapist murdered 21-year-old shop worker Kathleen Heathcote in 1963.
Evans served 11 years in prison for Miss Heathcote’s murder and began working as an electrician in Bristol after he was released on life licence in 1975.
Between 1977 and 1979, seven women were ambushed and sexually assaulted as they walked home alone in the Clifton, Redland and Westbury Park areas of Bristol.
The descriptions of the attacker provided by each woman bore haunting similarities, and locals began to refer to the prowler as ‘The Clifton Rapist’ or ‘The Clifton Beast.’
