[4] He was active between October 1974 and April 1975, and was also called the 'hooded rapist' because of a distinctive leather mask he wore whilst carrying out his crimes.
[5] Cook, who was arrested following what was one of Britain’s biggest police manhunts, was escaping from the scene of an attack wearing a long blonde wig as a disguise when he was apprehended.
[3] T-shirts capitalising on Cook’s notoriety were sold by punk fashion designers Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and one of these is retained in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Prior to his sexual offences, Cook already had a lengthy criminal history, having been a prolific burglar, and had served numerous prison sentences.
While on the run from Shire Hall, he wrote a letter to the News, boasting that he had been back in Cambridge while police were searching for him, and bragging: 'I am not worried now.
[5] It has been reported that when Cook was thwarted in his attempts to rape a woman he used lipstick to write "sleep tight - the rapist" on his intended victims' windows.
"[4] Cook’s spree of attacks came to an end at the Owlstone Croft nurses' hostel, where he was arrested on 8 June 1975 after he had stabbed a young woman.
[3] The Sex boutique in the King’s Road in Chelsea run by punk fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's sold T-shirts which "featured the leather mask worn by the Cambridge Rapist".
It was about a particular incident that occurred in the shop and worried those when they were accused of selling a leather mask to a supposed rapist who was terrorizing the town of Cambridge.
[10] Cook’s exploits were also the basis of John Burnside’s 2001 novel The Locust Room,[11] and have featured in Paul Bahn’s memoir The Cambridge Rapist - Unmasking The Beast of Bedsitland.