Man remanded in "Night Stalker" probe

LONDON (Reuters) - Detectives hunting for a serial sex attacker who is believed to have carried out dozens of offences against elderly people in London for 17 years, said on Monday they had charged a man.

Delroy Grant, 52, has been charged with 22 counts -- five rapes, six indecent assaults and 11 burglaries -- committed between 1992 and 2009, Scotland Yard said.

Grant, from Brockley in south London, was remanded in custody until Thursday following a brief appearance before Greenwich Magistrates on Monday.

The "Operation Minstead" investigation into attacks on mainly elderly women, but also some men, is the largest hunt for a rapist ever conducted by Metropolitan Police.

The offender, widely dubbed the "Night Stalker," is suspected of having committed about 100 attacks, with the eldest victim aged 93. In the worst case, the man raped an 88-year-old woman twice.

Police said this type of offender, a gerontophile who seeks sexual gratification from the elderly, was extremely rare.

Three years ago detectives said DNA and other forensic evidence narrowed the ancestral profile of the man to someone originating from the Windward Islands of the Caribbean.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)