I received a rather frantic phone call from my mum last night informing me that I'm related, by marriage, to the Rotherham Shoe Rapist; someone who committed a series of rapes about twenty years ago, always stealing one of his victim's shoes.

She explained the details and the man is my aunt's brother; and in my case it means he's no blood relative...I don't even think I've ever met him; I was never close to my aunt and uncle...I've not seen my aunt for over ten years; and my uncle's been dead for nearly as long.

The police managed to track down the rapist by routinely re-opening old unsolved cases and searching for DNA matches on the computer database. A couple of years ago my aunt was convicted of drink driving and had to provide a DNA sample and the computer cross referenced her details and discovered that one of her siblings was the rapist.

Why did it take so long though? Fortunely her brother hasn't been active for many years, so no-one was had been attacked during this delay.