A RAPIST who went unnoticed for two years after cops missed him during a DNA swab operation has now been found guilty of child abuse.

In 2009, police searching for the assailant of an 18-year-old girl failed to obtain a sample from Michael Higgins.

During the investigation, they took over 700 swabs but stopped within half a mile of his home in Warminster, Wiltshire.

He was apprehended in April 2011 after his son was arrested for a minor offence and routinely swabbed, resulting in a family match.

In November 2011, the builder was sentenced to 612 years in prison for rape.

In 2020, he was convicted of sexually assaulting a ten-year-old girl.

Higgins told his barrister Nathalie Carter in the witness box at St Albans Crown Court that he was known as Mucky, an old work name he was given when he was a hod carrier.

In response to prosecutor Laura Blackband’s cross-examination, he stated, “I don’t know where the allegations have come from.” “I’m not sure why she made this up.”

Higgins, 57, of Chesham, Bucks, will be sentenced in June at Swindon Crown Court.