Hour by chilling hour, how drug-fuelled rapist targeted eight women over THREE days of mayhem after his psychiatrists ruled he was 'stable' enough to be let loose on London's streets

He was a serial predatory sex offender fuelled by drugs and pornography. And when he was allowed out of a psychiatric unit, the results – all too predictably you might think – were catastrophic.

This is the chilling timeline of how depraved 29-year-old sex addict Louis Collins targeted his victims in a 72-hour rampage around London. The terrified women were stalked, threatened, beaten, abused and raped. Incredibly, it emerged that Collins was taking ecstasy and smoking cannabis while detained in a secure hospital – fuelling the voices in his head that were telling him to seek out female victims to fulfil his sick fantasies.

Despite this, in the six months leading up to the attacks in August last year, psychiatrists considered him sufficiently ‘stable’ for day release.

Last week, the impact of the decision to let Collins out on to the capital’s streets was outlined in court as he was sentenced for 27 offences including rape, attempted rape and sexual assault. ‘Your behaviour was the stuff of nightmares for all women and their families,’ Judge Simon Heptonstall told Collins as he jailed him for life at Kingston Crown Court. But it was the testimonies of his victims that brought home the terrible effect one man’s ­behaviour had on those unfortunate enough to have crossed his path.

‘I believed no one was going to help me and I was going to be raped and killed in the street,’ said one of his victims, whom he ­followed off a night bus before attempting to rape her as she ran towards her front door.

Another young woman, a ­university student, was attacked after he also followed her home, forcing his way through her front door and then throttling her.

Most heartbreaking were the words of his penultimate victim, whom he targeted as she was running in a south-west London park. Collins punched her in the face before holding a knife to her throat and raping her.

In a statement read to court, the woman told how the attack had turned her ‘world upside down’.

‘What happened on that day ­shattered my sense of security, trust in people and justice,’ she said. ‘It has stolen any joy from activities I once loved.’

As the Metropolitan Police appealed for other potential victims to come forward, Lambeth Hospital, which was responsible for allowing Collins back on to the streets, issued a statement saying that its ‘thoughts are with the victims and their families’ who have suffered because of his ‘appalling crimes’. ‘We have completed a thorough internal investigation and continue to do our upmost to improve our services,’ a spokesperson for The South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, which is responsible for the hospital, added. Precisely what the outcome of that investigation is remains unclear – but given the red flags missed with Collins, one can only hope lessons have been learned.

Raised in Croydon, Collins notched up the first of his many convictions aged just 15. Initially they were cannabis and knife-related, but a year later he was convicted of a robbery and locked up in a young offender institution.

More drug offences followed and in 2015, he was jailed for eight months following a sexual assault and three offences of exposure.

Collins’s sexual offending and drug use continued to escalate upon his release, and he committed 15 sexual offences between 2016 and 2019, culminating in a two-day spree when he committed three sexual assaults. These included approaching a 14-year-old in a McDonald’s and touching her thigh and squeezing another woman’s buttock.

Appearing at Kingston Crown Court in 2020 for those crimes, a judge ordered Collins to be indefinitely detained for treatment at Lambeth Hospital. While there, Collins was treated with antipsychotic medication and anti-depressants. He had previously been diagnosed with a type of schizophrenia. He was also found to suffer from compulsive sexual behaviour, fuelled by viewing pornography from a young age.

In the months before the series of attacks, Collins was a patient on a ward for people who have ­finished their treatment and are awaiting suitable accommodation. People are allowed leave commensurate with their stage of rehabilitation and are allowed visitors.

What has emerged is that Collins had been taking illicit drugs while in hospital – cannabis and 12 ecstasy tablets a fortnight.

How he obtained the drugs is unclear but a spokesman for the hospital claimed that patients were regularly drug-tested. Speaking with a forensic psychiatrist following his arrest last year, he admitted that the drugs made the voices in his head worse and gave him ‘uncontrollable urges’.

Despite this, from February of last year doctors assessed Collins’s mental state as ‘stable’ – indeed he was being considered for overnight leave. He also continued to be allowed out of the hospital without supervision during the day.

Then, in a three-day period in August of last year, the terrible consequences of that decision would become apparent.

OFFENCE 1

Date: August 18, 2023 - 3.40pm

Location: Escalator at Clapham Common Underground Station

Offence: Sexual assault

Shortly after leaving the hospital, Collins groped a woman on an escalator at Clapham Common ­station, grabbing her bottom and rubbing himself against her. When she realised what was happening, he apologised before rushing away. The victim later said she was left feeling ‘disgusting and dirty’. The court heard that she’s now on constant alert, even asking her partner not to touch her without warning. Collins returned to the hospital later that day. Two days later, he was back out on the streets again.

OFFENCE 2

Date: August 20, 2023 – 6.15pm

Location: Cousin Lane, by Cannon Street Station.

Offence: Outraging public decency.

Swigging from a bottle of ­prosecco in a busy London street near Cannon Street Station, Collins exposed himself and started masturbating in full-view of passers-by. He then followed a woman, stood in her way and told her to ‘suck my d**k’ or he would stab her. The woman ran away and called the police.

OFFENCE 3

Date: August 20, 2023 – 7.45pm

Location: St Katharine Docks, London E1

Offence: Trespass, Sexual Assault and Attempted Rape

Undeterred, in the hour and a half that followed, chilling CCTV footage showed Collins following three different women around the City of London.

One, a law student, was walking home listening to music on her headphones when she noticed a man trailing her ten metres behind. When she entered her block of flats, Collins rushed at the fob-operated door, forcing his way inside. His victim screamed but Collins put his arm around her neck, choking her.

He thrust his hand up her skirt, forced her to the floor and ordered her to perform oral sex on him. Managing to escape, she ran upstairs to her flat. As she fled, Collins screamed at her: ‘I will come back for you, I have your bag, laptop and keys.’

OFFENCE 4

Date: August 21, 2023 – 12.15am

Offence: Threats to kill

Location: Earls Court Road

Having failed to return to the hospital, Collins struck again in the early hours of the following morning. It was just after midnight and his victim, returning home from visiting her boyfriend abroad, had left Earl’s Court Tube station. Realising she was being followed, she called her boyfriend on her phone, putting him on loud-speaker. Growing increasingly scared, she ran into a convenience store, where Collins followed her. ‘I’m going to f***ing stab you,’ he told her before leaving. His victim has since been too scared to walk anywhere by herself after dark.

OFFENCE 5

Date: August 21, 2023 – 2am

Offence: Sexual assault, attempted rape, ABH, attempted strangulation

Location: Willesden Green

WITHIN two hours, Collins ­targeted another lone female on the top deck of a night bus. He was talking incoherently about having sex with his stepsister and ­stabbing people, which the woman tried to ignore, but he followed her off when the bus reached the last stop. She tried to run away, but Collins caught up with her.

He then dragged her to the ground and sat on top of her.

‘She screamed but he was punching her in the face and kissing her, thrusting his tongue in her mouth,’ Patricia May, prosecuting, told the first day of his sentencing hearing. ‘She was struggling to get away, but he pulled down her trousers and put his hand on her bottom.’

Collins demanded oral sex but was interrupted by a neighbour who confronted him armed with a baseball bat. The victim sustained wounds to her knees, face, neck, elbows, ear and lip.

Following the incident, she was too scared to leave her house and needed medication for anxiety and depression.

OFFENCE 6

Date: August 21, 2023 – 5am

Offence: Threatening with knife, sexual assault

Location: Sydney Street, Chelsea

Collins’s next victim was a hospital worker travelling by bus to the Royal Brompton Hospital in West London. Jumping off the bus behind her, he pointed a knife at her stomach and shouted: ‘Sit down and don’t shout or I will slash you.’ The woman tried to walk away but he blocked her path.

As others walked past, Collins pretended to be her boyfriend and kissed her on the lips. It was only when the woman banged on the entrance to the hospital and a security guard approached that Collins ran away.

OFFENCE 7

Date: August 21, 2023 – 8am

Offence: Rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, , ABH, threatening with an offensive weapon.

Location: Marble Hill Park, Twickenham.

Despite the carnage left in his wake, Collins was not done. At 8am he launched a terrifying attack on a lone woman as she exercised in Marble Hill Park, Twickenham.

She was punched in the face, forced to the ground and threatened with a broken bottle. Collins then held his knife to her throat, saying: ‘Don’t scream – nobody’s going to help you.’ Pulling off his victim’s clothes, he announced he hadn’t had sex for months and raped her. Afterwards, he told her to pretend to be his girlfriend, hugging and kissing her, while still threatening her with his knife.

The woman was eventually able to get away by telling Collins she would meet him later when she would bring him money.

In a heartbreaking statement read to the court, the victim outlined the terrible impact the ordeal had had on her, and how she’d faced an 18-month waiting list for professional counselling to help her deal with the trauma. ‘The individuals have to be held accountable for their actions and the resources need to be made available to victims,’ she said.

‘You shouldn’t have to wait months for therapy after something as awful as this.’

OFFENCE 8

Date: August 21, 2023 – 8am

Location: Marble Hill Park

Offence: Threatening words and behaviour

Collins’s final victim witnessed the attack in the park, pleading with him to stop. ‘F**k off or I’ll stab you,’ he told her. Fearing for her safety she walked away and called the police. Even that brief interaction with Collins left her terrified – she told the court from that day to this she always carries a rape alarm ­wherever she goes.

ARREST

Date: August 21, 2023 – 9.30am

Location: Richmond Station

At 9.30am, Collins was arrested by British Transport Police as he attempted to push through the barriers at Richmond Station. After officers ran his name through the police database, he was identified as someone who had absconded and was returned to Lambeth Hospital. At 9pm he was arrested at the hospital in connection with the park incident. Collins told police that they had the ‘wrong guy’ and that he was not a ‘nonce’.

He pleaded guilty to 27 charges between August 18 and 21 last year. Psychiatric assessments concluded that Collins was not ‘significantly mentally unwell’ at the time of the offences but posed a ‘very high’ risk of reoffending violently.

Last Tuesday, he was jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 12 years and 20 weeks before being considered for parole.

As he was led to the cells, Collins made a thumbs-up gesture towards the judge. For the sake of women everywhere, one can only hope it’s the last sight that society has of this dangerous man for a very long time.