The Fox: Serial rapist who terrorised Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire comes to our screens in true crime doc

If you’re a sucker for a true crime documentary, then this will be right up your street.

However, if – like me – you grew up in the 80s, Monday night’s true crime doc about serial rapist The Fox might feel a bit too close to home.

And justifiably so, as Malcolm Fairley caused terror to towns and villages across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire – known as the ‘triangle of terror’.

Dubbed The Fox, Fairley is the subject of a feature-length documentary called The Intruder: He’s Watching You From Within which airs on Channel 5 on Monday (April 8).

Growing up in a sleepy Bedfordshire village as a child was idyllic until the mid 80s. Sure, we’d heard of Peter Sutcliffe – the Yorkshire Ripper – but he’d already been banged up and his crimes were nowhere near here.

All of a sudden on the news and Crimewatch, we were being told of a sadistic predator who was lying in wait in peoples’ homes. He would build a den in the houses of his victims, before raping and violently assaulting the occupants – ranging in age from teenagers to pensioners. Then, he’d escape across open countryside.

He hit Leighton Buzzard, Cheddington, Tring, Heath and Reach, Linslade, and Edlesborough among others and during the summer of 1984, my sister and I were scared, often hearing police helicopters overhead. Our mum even wired all the windows shut so The Fox couldn’t get in.

My sister said: “We went to bed with aerosols beside our heads to spray an intruder in the face. And our Mum took us in the kitchen to show us where the sharp knives were – and where the jugular was.

“We were scared. We were vulnerable as we lived in a rural area with just our Mum and the woods behind us. It wasn’t long after the Hanratty murder either.”

Fairley was eventually caught and sentenced to six life sentences in February 1985.

The Intruder: He’s Watching You From Within is on Channel 5 on Monday (April 8) at 10pm.