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The hunt for one of the the country’s most prolific and terrifying criminals nicknamed The Fox will be chronicled in a documentary on Monday night.
The Intruder: He’s Watching You From Within premieres 0n Channel 5 at 10pm on Monday detailing the police investigation and manhunt in 1984 which led to the capture of Malcolm Fairley.
A masked serial sex offender and burglar, he terrorised rural communities in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire breaking into homes and assaulting occupants before detectives eventually caught up with him.
His modus operandi was to break into homes while the occupants were out or asleep, create a den from furniture and blankets, watch television and eat food from the fridge while lying in wait for the residents to return home or wake up. Masked and wearing gloves, he would then brandish a shotgun before sexually assaulting them.
It was this behaviour which earned him the nickname The Fox.
Dan Louw, commissioning editor at Channel 5, said: “There’s something primal about our fear that there’s someone lurking in our homes – in our place of safety.
“This film is a real-life horror movie, and a tribute to the brave victims who survived Fairley’s terror and the diligent cops who beat the odds to track him down.”
Monday night’s documentary will focus on the operation by Bedfordshire Police, which cost £200,000 at the time, to find The Fox.
We take a look at the man behind the mask.
Who is Malcolm Fairley?
Born in Silksworth, near Sunderland in 1952, Fairley was the youngest of nine children.
He was described as “shy and introvert” as a child but by thet ime he had reached his teens he had already come to the attention of the police for theft and burglary.
At the age of 19, he married his first wife but she left him after he became violent.
His second marriage produced three children and the family lived near Peterlee but Fairley was regularly in and out of prison.
In 1983, he moved to the Leighton Buzzard area in Bedfordshire and took on labouring jobs for a number of companies from Berkhamsted to Milton Keynes.
What crimes did he commit?
In March 1984, he carried out a series of burglaries but it would be the following month on 11 April that he attempted to commit his first sex offence.
He broke into the home of a 74-year-old woman in Leighton Buzzard, when she resisted his attempts to sexually assault her he ran off.
This was to be the start of his spree which saw him clock up 80 offences.
On the evening of 10 May, 1984, he broke into the home of a man in Cheddington, Buckinghamshire, where he stole a 12-bore shotgun and £300 in cash. He then laid in wait for the 35-year-old man to return home. The victim was tied up and sexually assaulted, after Farley had watched pornographic videos.
There were more burglaries including one of a home in Tring, Hertfordshire where Fairley stole another shotgun which he would use for the rest of his crimes.
On 6 July 1984, he broke into the home of a couple in Linsdale, Bedfordshire and raped the wife. Four days later, he carried out another sexual attack.
His focus then shifted to Edlesborough in Buckinghamshire, where he committed a series of burglaries and the rape of an 18-year-old girl.
He then committed a number of offences in Milton Keynes before driving up to County Durham in mid-August of 1984.
On his way north, he stopped on the M18 and crossed fields to a small village in South Yorkshire where he broke into the home of a couple and committed another rape.
Afterwards he carefully cut out a portion of a bedsheet stained with his semen, then buried this along with the mask and gloves he had worn while committing the crime.
But the crime was to be his ultimate downfall, as he left the property he accidentally reversed into bushes leaving flecks of his car paint.
How was The Fox caught?
The police investigation, named Operation Peanut, to find The Fox involved more than 200 officers and Army Lynx helicopters. Detectives who had worked on the hunt for Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe were brought in to help.
It was one of the first police operations to use a computer to log and cross-reference details and create a psychological profile of the perpetrator.
Analysis of the yellow paint found on the bushes at the South Yorkshire home where he attacked in mid-August revealed it was from a British Leyland Austin Allegro from 1973-75.
Detectives were able to trace the owners of these vehicles and eventually turned up at an address in Kentish Town, north London in September 1984, where Fairley was living at the time.
He was questioned by officers on 11 September that year, who noticed scratches on the paintwork and that he was left-handed as his victims had identified.
Where is Malcom Fairley now?
Fairley went on trial at St Albans Crown Court in February 1985 and was convicted of a number of counts of burglary, rape and possession of a firearm. He was given six life sentences.
Passing sentence on 26 February, Mr Justice Caulfield said: “There are degrees of wickedness beyond condemnatory description.
“Your crimes fall within this category.
“You desecrated and defiled men and women in their own homes…You are a decadent advertisement for evil pornographers.”
Fairley is eligible for a parole board review of his sentence later this year.
But the police officer who led the police operation to find him Detective Chief Superintendent Brian Prickett said he should never be released.
He said “never deserves to be released because I think he’s still a real risk to the public.”
