Rapist who escaped justice for two years convicted of abusing 10-year-old girl.

A RAPIST who escaped justice for two years after cops missed him during a DNA swab operation has now been convicted of child abuse.

Police hunting the attacker of an 18-year-old girl in 2009 failed to take a sample from Michael Higgins. They took more than 700 swabs during the probe but stopped within half a mile of his house in Warminster, Wilts.

He was eventually caught in April 2011 after his son was arrested for a minor offence and routinely swabbed, leading to a family match being found. The builder was jailed for 6 years in November 2011 for rape.

He has now been convicted of sexually assaulting a ten-year-old girl in 2020. In the witness box at St Albans Crown Court, Higgins told his barrister Nathalie Carter that he was known as Mucky, which was an old work name he was given when he was a hod carrier.

Cross-examined by prosecutor Laura Blackband he said: "I don't know where the allegations have come from. I don't know why she made this up."

Higgins, 57, now of Chesham, Bucks, will be sentenced at Swindon crown court in June.