DETECTIVES searching for a serial rapist who has struck nine times within the past 11 months have a DNA sample, senior Kent Police have revealed.

Police officers from four counties are trying to hunt down the attacker whose first known rape victim is thought to have been a 10-year-old girl who was assaulted on the Stanhope estate at Ashford last November.

Police are hoping a TV reconstruction of an attack in Bracknell in Berkshire in which a 12-year-old girl was raped will bring forward new witnesses in the hunt. ITV's Tonight programme with Trevor McDonald featured an interview with the girl's mother, who made an emotional appeal for anyone with information to come forward.

Det Chief Insp Colin Murray, of Kent police, said: "It may be that there are people out there who have been attacked and not reported it to us.

"It might be he's been looking for a victim and somebody's see something and they've not realised the significance of what they've seen. But we need all suspicious reports telephoned in to us."