STEPPING out of the car into the cold night, rookie police officer Michelle Tighe knew she was putting her life on the line.
For a year and a half, a sinister sex fiend had been stalking the streets of Bristol, carrying out a string of horrific attacks on women.
Michelle, 23, had been recruited as a “honeytrap” as part of a covert police operation in a bid to snare the rapist.
Inexperienced female officers, some as young as 18, had to take turns walking the streets at night around areas of Clifton where the predator had struck.
And they were briefed that to make an arrest, they must first let the monster attack them.
It was in March 1979 — on the operation’s final push before it was due to be axed amid mounting costs — that Michelle nailed the beast.
She was not meant to be on street patrol that night, but had swapped shifts with a colleague who had to attend court during the day.
Within minutes of being dropped off to begin her undercover stint, Michelle found herself face to face with Ronald Evans, dubbed the Clifton Rapist, who immediately lined her up as his next victim.
Recalling the terrifying moment, the retired cop, now Michelle Leonard, tells The Sun: “He grabbed me around the throat and said, ‘Don’t scream or I will kill you’.
“He started dragging me back into one of the gardens, which is what he used to do.
“With that, everybody came rushing out because there were policemen hidden in the bushes.
“I shouted, ‘Don’t let him get away’.
“With that, he hit me and pushed me down to the ground before running off.
“I think he realised he had been set up.
“He was captured further along the road and then he was arrested for assault.”
It emerged that at the time of the sting, Evans was out on licence for the sexually motivated murder of a 21-year-old shop worker 15 years earlier.
Thanks in part to Michelle, he was later jailed and served 39 years for multiple sex attacks in Bristol.
He grabbed me around the throat and said, ‘Don’t scream or I will kill you’
Michelle
Today, the retired cop’s extraordinary bravery has largely become forgotten.
But now her heroic efforts are detailed in a new book about the chilling case, called Decoy, by Robert Murphy.
Reflecting on how she was targeted, Michelle, now 69, says: “It was like something you would see on television.
“Within a split second of me getting out of the car, his yellow Capri turned the corner.
“He saw me on my own and did a U-turn before he started to follow me on foot up the road.
‘THERE HE WAS ON MY SHOULDER’
“He could have just looked at me and driven off.”
A male officer monitoring the situation spotted Evans’ motor and recognised him from the police identikit.
Running the registration through their database revealed the man’s identity.
Cops then discovered that married father and electrician Evans had been locked up for raping and murdering shop worker Kathleen Heathcote in Nottingham in 1964.
He was released from prison in 1975, having served 11 years, before moving to Bristol, where he lived with his second wife.
It was like something you would see on television
Michelle
After turning off the main road and on to the darkened side streets, Michelle heard the officer say over the radio: “Attention everybody, this man is on life licence for murder, got previous convictions for rape.”
She recalls: “I went, gulp, ‘keep walking, I have got to get under a street light’.
“I did, and I turned round and there he was on my shoulder.”
Asked what went through her mind when Evans pounced, Michelle says: “I just thought, ‘Oh dear. Oh God’.
“It was all so quick, it was a flash.
“As soon as he laid a physical hand on me, they were all coming out.
“Everybody was going, ‘Get ’im, get ’im’. It was chaos.”
Evans’ reign of terror began in the early hours of July 16, 1977, in Clifton, a year before WPC Michelle joined the force.
In total, seven women were sexually assaulted, sparking protests across the city.
Under mounting pressure to catch the attacker, police set up Operation Argus in January 1979, using ten young, inexperienced female officers as decoys.
Mum-of-two Michelle, who now lives in Wool, Dorset, with her second husband, retired car transport driver Stephen Leonard, 66, says: “They had policewomen walking a set route for three nights a week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
“We all took it in turns and, of course, we were young and wanted to show we were capable.
“But the one proviso was that at each briefing, we were told we would have to let him attack us to make an arrest.
“Funnily enough, I was one of the older ones out of the women.
“Some ex-cadets were 18, 19.
“And we were just up for it because with all the women protesting about not being able to walk the streets, we felt we could do something to make a difference.”
The young female cops were given basic self-defence training before heading out, and kept under surveillance by several male officers who hid among the bushes.
Michelle recalls: “We didn’t get paid any overtime, but the blokes did.”
There were no stab vests and the women were not even armed with truncheons during their covert patrols.
Everybody wanted him caught because he was a thorn in our side
Michelle
Michelle explains: “It wasn’t allowed.
“You didn’t want anything that could be grabbed, so we just had a big radio around our necks, under our coat, with an earpiece.”
During the course of the three-month operation, a form of healthy competition developed between the women cops, all keen to be the one who nailed the fiend.
Michelle says: “I think we all felt perhaps, ‘Tonight is the night’ when we were doing our shift.
“But, as the evening came to an end, it would be, ‘Not tonight then. There is always tomorrow’.
“There was a great camaraderie between everybody.
“Everybody wanted him caught because he was a thorn in our side.”
Around 200 officers were involved in the operation, with a couple of young male recruits also acting as decoys.
Michelle says: “We had to dress up two men in women’s clothes and we’d put their make-up on for them.”
The operation was groundbreaking for its time.
Michelle says: “When I first joined, policewomen were not even allowed out on nights.
‘I had nightmares that he’d broken out’
“It was something that had never been tried before.
“I can’t imagine they would allow any young 18 or 19-year-old women to do that now.”
Michelle says she does not like to hear female cops who took part in the covert operation labelled “honeytraps”.
Asked how she feels about the term, Michelle says: “I find it quite offensive actually, because I was dressed in jeans, a duffle coat and flat shoes.
“I looked like a student going home.
“So when people call it a honeytrap, it was as if we were tottering around in high-heeled shoes and hardly any clothes on, but we weren’t.”
Officers also had to be incredibly careful not to cross the line of entrapment.
Michelle says: “We couldn’t give him any defence that we baited him or we led him on, because that could just collapse the whole trial if it came to court.
“But I had to let him attack me and I don’t think they would do that now.”
Immediately after her ordeal, Michelle was whisked away in a squad car to make a statement at the station, before heading home for a cup of tea.
At the time, I had nightmares
Michelle
The following morning, she woke to find a bunch of flowers from the Chief Superintendent.
She also received numerous thank-you letters from women in Bristol.
Her most treasured correspondence was a letter from tragic Kathleen’s brother, who had moved to Australia.
Michelle says: “He said, ‘I am Kathleen’s brother and I just want to say thank you for all you have done’.”
Of the effect the attack had on her, Michelle says: “At the time, I had nightmares.
“I would wake up thinking he had broken out of prison, but those passed. There was no welfare like there would be now.
“You would have an assessment now to make sure you were all right, but there was nothing.
“It happened on the Thursday. I was given Saturday and Sunday off, then back to work on Monday.”
Evans was convicted and jailed in July 1979.
He remained in prison until his release on licence in 2018, before moving to London the following year.
He was sent back to jail last November after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a “vulnerable” woman in Wembley, North London, in July 2022.
The 82-year-old is believed to be Britain’s longest-serving prisoner.
Michelle says: “He has obviously got issues with women and he should not be allowed out again.”
He has obviously got issues with women and he should not be allowed out again
Michelle
The Sun ran a story when the WPC was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct in 1981.
After her second child was born — her son Jonathan is now 37, and daughter Abigail is 34 — Michelle left the force in 1989.
But she returned six years later, this time as a civilian investigating officer in the Major Crime Unit, working on cases including the disappearance and murder of landscape architect Joanna Yeates in Bristol in 2010.
The grandmother-of-five retired in 2012.
A keen croquet player, she has also given a talk to her local Women’s Institute about snaring one of Britain’s most wanted men.
Michelle says with a laugh: “I am just a little old lady now, aren’t I? I am invisible.”
But more fool anyone who underestimates her courage.
- Decoy, by Robert Murphy, is published by Harper NonFiction, priced £9.99.
