Labour deputy mayor tried to maintain infamous rapist and killer out of jail after he attacked once more
A Labour deputy mayor tried to keep a notorious rapist and killer out of prison after he attacked a woman following his release.
Councillor Kathleen Fraser provided a character witness and defence statement on behalf of Ronald Evans, 84, one of Britain’s longest-serving prisoners.
But Ms Fraser was only suspended from Labour in June – 18 months after his latest victim had made a complaint about her.
Evans spent more than 50 years in jail for murdering Kathleen Heathcote, 21, in 1963 and for multiple sex attacks in Bristol between 1977 and 1979.
He was released in 2018 and moved to London a year later.
But in July 2022, he persuaded a woman to visit his flat. He grabbed her bottom after he told her about murdering Ms Heathcote. The victim, 55, had met Evans at an event in Wembley run by Ms Fraser, who had been elected to the council that year.
In 2023, Evans was jailed for four years for the sexual assault. Ms Fraser attended court as a defence witness and also provided a character statement for him.
Following the trial, the victim complained about Ms Fraser to the Labour Party in January last year. In May this year, Ms Fraser was appointed deputy mayor but she was only suspended by Labour in June.
The victim told the Daily Mail: ‘I [had] relayed to Fraser everything that occurred [during the attack], including Evans confiding in me of an “accidental murder”.
Ronald Evans (pictured) spent more than 50 years in jail for murdering Kathleen Heathcote, 21, in 1963 and for multiple sex attacks in Bristol between 1977 and 1979.
Councillor Kathleen Fraser (pictured) provided a character witness and defence statement on behalf of Ronald Evans
‘I pleaded with her to properly investigate Evans’s history. A simple search on the Sex Offenders Database would have revealed who he really was. But she didn’t do this and almost two weeks later, she stopped responding to my calls and emails.’
The victim discovered that Evans had previously targeted another woman after his release but she said that when she provided this information to Ms Fraser, the councillor warned her that if she contacted police she might be ‘bruised by a negative response’.
The following month, the victim saw a documentary on ITV about Evans’s crimes.
‘It caused me immense trauma and led to an exacerbation of underlying PTSD and the development of an eating disorder.’ She then reported the assault to police herself.
Following the Labour Party’s failure to suspend Ms Fraser for 18 months, Tory justice spokesman Dr Kieran Mullan said: ‘This victim made extremely serious accusations and for a Labour Party which says tackling violence against women and girls is a priority to take more than a year to investigate will leave the victim rightly questioning where that priority was with her situation.’
The Daily Mail spoke to Ms Fraser after Evans’s conviction in 2023. At the time, she said she had not initially been aware of the severity of his crimes.
She did not respond to recent requests for comment.
