Seeing Red A True Crime Podcast · Mark Randell & Bethan Trueman

The M25 Rapist: Fear in the Home Counties

·1 hr 5 min·15 clips

The episode opens by framing Anthony Emila as an offender who was already escalating faster than investigators expected. Only 10 days after the earlier attack, July 11, 2002 becomes the day he strikes twice in separate locations. That morning, a 30-year-old woman is jogging along a wooded trail in Earlswood in Surrey, just south of London, when a man comes charging from behind at high speed. He tackles her to the ground, punches her in the face repeatedly, drags her off the path into the woods, ties her hands, and rapes her. She manages to free herself and get help, and police soon swarm the scene to collect evidence. The episode then shifts to later that same day. About six hours later, an off-duty 26-year-old nurse is walking across Putney Common in southwest London when she is attacked from behind. He overpowers her with brute force and threats, warns her not to make a sound, and binds her wrists and ankles with strips of cloth and her own shoelaces. He rapes her on the open common. Afterward, he rummages through her belongings, takes her mobile phone, and uses it to call her mother while the victim is still tied up. The episode lingers on that detail because it turns the assault into something even more invasive and cruel. The narrative keeps the focus on the victims' terror, the predator's method, and the speed with which the violence moved from one place to another. It frames the day as a sequence of assaults that left public spaces and ordinary routines feeling suddenly vulnerable. The tone stays grave and direct. The storytelling is descriptive rather than flashy. It gives the case room to unfold without softening what happened. The result is a bleak, careful account of a man who preyed on women in open spaces and compounded the harm with a deliberate act of humiliation.

As heard by us

A blunt, tense account of violence that leaves familiar places feeling unsafe.

The episode tracks Anthony Emila's attacks with a steady hand, moving from the first assault to the second without losing the human cost along the way.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a tightly told true-crime case about two attacks in one day and a phone call that turns the aftermath even colder.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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