David Pearce, 70, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to seven historical sex offences, closing a decades-long cold case. A routine 2019 arrest for voyeurism required Pearce to provide a DNA sample, which had a one-in-a-billion match to forensic evidence left at a crime scene decades earlier.
Assaults Began in 1990
In the initial incident in 1990, Pearce disguised himself as a caretaker to lure four young children into an east London lido under the false pretence of searching for lost keys. Inside a changing area, he cornered the victims—the youngest of whom was just eight years old—forced them to strip, and assaulted them. The children immediately fled to a local police station to report the attack, but DNA samples collected at the time yielded no matches on the existing database.
Second Attack in 1996
Six years later, a similar attack occurred when a 13-year-old girl was forced into shrubbery in a Barking park and assaulted. The attacker again claimed he needed help looking for missing keys. After officers exhausted all lines of enquiry, detectives filed the cases away pending further opportunities.
Breakthrough in 2019
That opportunity arrived with Pearce's 2019 voyeurism arrest. The one-in-a-billion DNA match tied him definitively to the 1990 lido assaults, prompting detectives to review similar historical reports. The review led them to the 1996 Barking park case, where an identification parade allowed the victim to confirm Pearce as her attacker. Further investigation revealed Pearce had been living in the immediate area at the time both crimes were committed.
Justice After Decades
Faced with overwhelming forensic and circumstantial evidence, Pearce pleaded guilty, resulting in an 18-year prison sentence. The Met Police issued an e-fit handout of the suspect at the time, later revealed to be Pearce. The case brings closure to victims who waited decades for justice.
