12/10/2025
“YOU’LL never find out who I am.”
Ra**st William Bates was jailed 18 years after his crime thanks to advances in DNA technology.
WILLIAM STANLEY BATES.
RA**ST.
Nottinghamshire/Sunderland.
England.
“YOU’LL never find out who I am.”
Those are the chilling words ra**st William Stanley Bates spat at his devastated victim, after carrying out a brutal attack on her in a public park.
Yet this picture captures the moment when his past finally catches up with him, almost two decades after he dragged the woman into Barnes Park in Sunderland.
Thanks to the wonders of modern science and DNA profiling, police were finally able to find out who the attacker was, and William Bates was brought to justice . . . and all he could bleat out was a shocked “Pardon?”.
Bates is now behind bars, yet had police reopened his case a year after they did he may never have been caught, due to changes in rules surrounding DNA storage.
The Home Office announced the DNA of most innocent people arrested in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be destroyed after six years, in line with a European Court of Human Rights’ ruling.
Bates was 22 when he r***d the woman, who was in her 20s at the time, after abducting her from the street during the early hours of June 12, 1990.
She was left with injuries all over her body following the attack and Bates left his DNA at the scene of the crime... but at the time it was not enough to identify the twisted attacker.
BBC’s Inside Out team joined up with investigators from Northumbria Police last year when they reopened the case as part of Operation Phoenix, which re-investigates cold cases using advances in DNA.
In a completely unconnected case, Bates had given a DNA sample back in 2001 following a minor assault.
So when forensic experts ran samples he had left at the crime scene in 1990, a match popped up straight away, giving cops the name William Stanley Bates.
Before they could proceed, however, DC Cath Easton had to go back to the victim to ask if she wanted to pursue the case.
The woman said: “I wanted to just forget about it and not bother, but why should he get away with it while I had suffered all these years?”
Bates, who was now married and living in Mansfield, was lured to the police station by detectives saying they needed to speak to him on a trivial matter.
DC Kevin Carr then told him the real reason he had been summoned, saying: “I am now arresting you on suspicion of a r**e that took place in Barnes Park on June 12, 1990.”
Bates said: “Pardon? I think I should get a solicitor. I’m getting a bit shocked here.”
In 2008, Bates was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in jail by a judge at Newcastle Crown Court.
Police said the resulting conviction proves the merit of leaving DNA on record for years after a sample has been taken.
Det Chief Supt Chris Thomson said: “Ministers need to think very carefully before they implement measures which may prevent us from getting detection for important cases.”
