Baker was arrested in the early hours of the morning about to board a plane to Spain at Heathrow Airport on December 16 last year.

Operation Monarch officers confronted Baker as he got off the coach.

They are believed to have been tipped off by a family member who saw trailers for the Crimewatch programme which was broadcast just hours before Baker was picked up.

His eight-month reign of terror was over - the attacks just five days before still as fresh as open wounds in the minds of Baker's last two victims.

Baker was taken to Belgravia police station in London where he was questioned about a string of sexual assaults.

Two days later he made his first appearance at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court.

Baker was remanded in custody as detectives worked hard behind the scenes to link other offences.

A number of offences had already been linked in November by DNA profiles - now officers had to see if they also linked to Baker.

The list of offences just grew and grew. It spiralled into a catalogue of shame which totalled 13 offences on 12 women. 'God's gift' had horde of women admirers

"A wicked, wicked man with an evil, clever and cunning mind."

This is how the detective in charge of the Baker inquiry describes the serial sex attacker dubbed the Beast of Bodmin.

Well spoken and with tanned good looks - part-time DJ Baker had a more sinister side - a modern day Jekyll and Hyde personality.

As well as an insatiable appetite for sex, he considered himself God's gift to women and had large numbers of girlfriends.

He was never short of female admirers.

Certainly not in sun-kissed Torremolinos on Spain's Costa del Sol where he worked as a nightclub disc jockey and mingled with young holidaymakers.

Young, tanned and muscled from working out at the gym, he was particularly popular with the ladies.

Det Supt David Bright said: "Out there, with adoring holidaymakers, the sun, sea and sand, he was a somebody, a real charmer."

But Baker wanted more.

To see him in the dock with a prison pallor replacing the tan and his once athletic body now looking almost stocky, he is unremarkable - someone you would pass in the street without a second glance.

But on fleeting return visits to the UK, tanned Baker would chillingly stalk the streets - looking for a victim - not just anyone, but someone to fit his "desire criteria".

Aged 15 to 35, all of his chosen victims were young, slim and pretty with long, dark hair.

Sitting next to each other in the public gallery of the courtroom- bravely watching Baker give his evidence - they could almost have been lined up as part of a police identity parade.

Baker admits: "I probably found them attractive - their figures, their hair, their looks."

The court heard he would pay them compliments during the attacks.

Staring directly at one of his victims watching in the gallery he added: "I did tell her in particular."

One of his victims described Baker as a Jekyll and Hyde character - speaking to her like a child one minute and threatening to kill her the next.

Few people coming into normal contact with the smooth-talking DJ would have guessed his secret.

Det Supt Bright has said: "He had no trouble getting women to fall for him but he was not after a normal, loving relationship."

Richard Anthony Baker was brought up with a brother by his adoring mother and father at the family home in Bodmin, Cornwall.

Fellow DJ Chris Lundy said the Baker in the dock was not the person he knew.

He added: "He must be a monster really - the real Beast of Bodmin."

Mr Lundy, 46, was working as a DJ in Bodmin when Baker - then still at school in the town - followed him around to try and learn the business.

He said: "He was very good, he was a good talker. He was very good looking and could have had any woman he wanted without having to do what he has done."

DJ Stewart Sproull, who knew Baker from Bodmin Comprehensive School, said he was surprised to learn about the offences.

He said: "When I knew him at school he seemed very pleasant and had no ill feeling towards anybody.

"He was always very confident and full of himself."

Remarkable - the similarity between rapist Baker and the description given to police artists who compiled his e-fit Echo wins praise for helping trap him

This Is Essex partner paper the Echo has won the praise of top detectives for its part in raising the profile of the case and alerting people to the hunt for a serial sex attacker.

Det Supt David Bright, who led the inquiry, knew that it would be members of the public who held the key to identifying just who the sex fiend was.

He said: "I knew we needed the eyes and ears of the public just as we had done with the baby Karli kidnap case in Basildon.

"Without their help and the immediate response by the media we would not have found Karli as quickly as we did.

"Once again journalists and broadcasters have played an essential part in an investigation.

"The Echo particularly kept it alive and in people's minds."

Mr Bright added that the success of the case was down to the hard work of a number of usually unsung heroes.

He said: "I would single out for special praise the three officers who have worked so closely with all of Baker's victims - in every way a very demanding task.

"Victim care is so very important in a case such as this. Often in high profile inquiries everything focuses on the senior investigating officer and civilian support staff, typists and those doing the hard slog inquiries get overlooked.

"It must have been a very unsettling job just to have to type these victims statements. I fully appreciate everyone's commitment and hard work. Without it we wouldn't have achieved what we have.

"This was in every respect an excellent team effort." Baker carried date rape drug

Sex monster Richard Baker toured southern Spain carrying a holdall stuffed with pornographic pictures and a bottle of the date-rape drug Rohypnol.

His secret baggage was handed to police by a friend after he was arrested in Torremolinos last year.

They discovered it contained the sordid snaps and a bottle of the banned drug, used by rapists to knock out their victims.

But the evidence could not be produced at Baker's Old Bailey trial because he did not use Rohypnol on any of the girls he attacked in Britain.

Baker sent an Irish friend the holdall in a panic after he was arrested by Spanish cops on suspicion of rape last summer. He got a message to her begging her to look after the bag for him.

But the curious Dubliner opened it up - and was horrified to discover the contents. Inside were nude pictures of teenage girls and a glass bottle of Rohypnol.

The drug was banned last year after it was revealed that many sex attackers were using it to make their victims less resistant.

A senior detective on the Baker inquiry said: "The woman was on holiday in Spain during this investigation and got to know Richard Baker.

"He was arrested out there and managed to get one of his bags to her to look after. When she looked inside she was the Rohypnol and, it is believed, some pictures.

"She immediately handed it over to the authorities out there. But it's not suggested from any victims in this case that the drug was used on them, so it was not part of the trial.

"I believe the bag was given back to the legal teams acting on Mr Baker's behalf."

Rohypnol has no colour, taste or odour and can be easily slipped into someone's drink without them knowing.

It makes the victim feel drowsy and appear drunk.

Ideally for rapists it also blurs the memory so that a victim would not realise she had been attacked until days later - by then, any forensic evidence will have vanished.

Detectives believe the drug find completes the picture of Baker as an insatiable and obsessed sex maniac who delighted in having helpless women at his mercy.

The scores of women he could have had consensual sex with in Spain and Britain were not enough for a man who yearned to control.

It is understood that Spanish police have investigated a number of complaints involving Baker, but they were not proceeded with.

Detectives in this country have been shocked by the total lust of the serial rapist.

One said: "What kind of man carries out an appalling sex attack, then uses her telephone to call an ex-girlfriend?"

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.