Multiple failures over rapist who went on to kill

INQUEST FINDS POLICE, PROBATION SERVICE AND NHS TRUST AT FAULT

- DAMON WILKINSON

MULTIPLE failures by police, probation services and an NHS trust allowed a convicted rapist to enrol at a college where he befriended a vulnerable young woman he later murdered, an inquest has found.

Simon Goold, 52, was jailed for life in February 2023, after he raped then strangled Elizabeth McCann, 26, a fellow student at the Health and Wellbeing college in Ashton-under-Lyne.

It was known that Goold, who had been convicted of rape, sexual assault and wounding in 2010, posed a danger to 'lone women' in 'certain circumstances. But despite that he was allowed to join the college without a risk assessment taking place.