He grabbed me and said 'don't scream or I'll kill you'

In the late 1970s, women in Bristol were living in fear. A mystery attacker was prowling the streets of the Clifton, Redland and Westbury Park areas looking for victims. Over the course of 18 months he had attacked and sexually assaulted seven women as they walked home at night.

As the attacks became more serious, students were warned not to walk alone at night.

Under pressure from the public, senior officers decided to deploy a honeytrap operation to snare the man who had been dubbed the 'Clifton Rapist'.

One night it was the turn of then-rookie officer Michelle Leonard to walk the streets to try and lure him out of the shadows.

"There was a lot of ill feeling at the time - and we [the police] looked like we weren't doing anything," Ms Leonard said.

"There were a lot of demonstrations, leaflets given to the university, to give out to women [telling them] not to walk around on their own.

"The bosses felt that something had to be done and then they did set up this operation - which was way ahead of its time really."

Operation Argus, named after a many-eyed Greek god, began in January 1979.

Some male officers dressed up in long blonde wigs, stockings, high heeled shoes and padded bras and walked the city streets.

Ms Leonard signed up to work as a decoy during the operation. Her role was to walk a pre-planned route near to where previous attacks had taken place.

On 23 March Ms Leonard, then 24, stepped out into the dark.

Other officers were spaced out along her route, hidden in gardens, keeping in touch with each other via their police radios.

"Any time you felt you were in danger, you could call it off," she said.

As she walked on to Whiteladies Road, one of the main avenues through the area, one sergeant who was part of the operation saw a yellow Capri driving past. The vehicle had been spotted near the scene of one of the rapes, and was in the police's records.

"He realised the driver was identical to the photofit," recalls Ms Leonard. "The photofit was him."

The man in the car was Ronald Evans, a convicted killer who had moved to Bristol after being released from prison in 1975.

Now had his attention on Ms Leonard.

As she walked along Chantry Road, she heard on the radio the Capri had pulled up and the driver was watching her.

"I'd got into the dark part of Clifton and I'm just about to cross into Chertsey Road when I heard 'The driver's got out of the car. He's following Michelle on foot'," she said.

"There was a sort of delay and then it came back 'Attention everybody, this man is on life licence for murder and has previous convictions for rape'.

"I had a moment where I thought, should I give up, or should I continue?

"I thought 'no, I've got to get under a streetlight'.

"I could hear his footsteps - I was fine while I could hear his footsteps. As soon as I got to the streetlight, I couldn't hear him anymore.

"As I turned around, there he was on my shoulder. He grabbed me around the throat, around the arm and said 'Don't scream or I'll kill you' and began to drag me back into the garden.

"That was enough for everybody to come out of the bushes - people in the cars all turned up.

"He realised he had been caught, hit me, pushed me down to the ground and started running.

"Luckily at the end of the road there was another officer, and he was arrested."

Evans, who was 38 at the time of his arrest, was already on life licence for the rape and murder of Nottinghamshire woman Kathleen Heathcote in 1964.

After his arrest during Operation Argus, he was sent back to prison for 39 years after confessing to sexual offences against five women.

Decades later, in 2015, he was found guilty of two more attacks in Clifton in the 1970s and was handed a further 10-year jail term.

Evans was released in 2018 but jailed again in 2023 for four years after sexually assaulting a woman in London in 2022.

He remains one of the UK's longest-serving prisoners, having spent more than five decades behind bars.

Reflecting on her role in his conviction, Ms Leonard said: "I feel quite proud that I'd been involved in such a job, where somebody so evil was taken off the streets."

She has shared her story as part of a series celebrating the 50th anniversary of Avon and Somerset Police.