DETECTIVES leading the massive manhunt for a serial rapist have been flooded with calls after a slot on a prime-time TV on Monday night.

More than 170 people called Crimewatch after recognising at least four clues in a chilling profile of the culprit - branded Britain’s most wanted man.

Graphic 999 recordings and reconstructions of his crimes formed a new appeal for the man who has preyed on elderly victims in south east London for more than 16 years.

Perhaps significantly, several identified people with care-worker backgrounds.

In an emergency call, one woman said to operators: “He got into my bedroom and he tried to smother me.”

Another said: “He said quietly, 'We could have sex’. I said 'That is a disgusting thing to say. How could you?’ It was then that he left.”

Those leading Scotland Yard’s biggest-ever hunt for a serial rapist – Operation Minstead – urged viewers to consider the culprit could appear a friendly family man.

He has struck twice in Sidcup, and Orpington is one of the three suburbs detectives believe the attacker is most familiar with, having struck there at least five times.

He is thought to have burgled close to 100 different homes and been linked to four rapes and 24 indecent assaults across south east London since the early 1990s. It was recently revealed 10 elderly men had also been targeted, with one indecently assaulted.

The man attacks his victims at night and is believed to be a gerentophile – driven to his crimes by a sexual interest in the elderly.

Detectives are keen to make headway before the Christmas period, when he has been most active in the past.

They have been able to build a clearer picture of the suspect because he left vital DNA evidence during a burglary in Bromley two years ago.

Det Insp Nick Chalmers said: “We were struck as these factors emerged and began to produce an amazingly detailed picture of a man who leads an otherwise respectable life, but occasionally steps outside this facade to commit vile attacks.”

The last offence linked to him happened in February last year, when he burgled the home of a 78-year-old woman in Mottingham.