Featured Image Credit: BBC/BBC
Topics: UK News
Joe Harker
If anybody had 'Masked Gimp Man returns' on their 2022 bingo card, they are allowed to feel pretty smug right about now – and maybe slightly scared.
A masked menace in a latex bodysuit has seemingly returned to terrorise the people of Claverham and Yatton.
In recent years, there have been a number of sightings in the quiet villages of a masked man dressed in a gimp suit loitering menacingly.
Police have searched several times for him – even using helicopters and sniffer dogs – but have not been able to uncover the identity of the masked menace.
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However, it seems he's made another appearance, as according to the Daily Star, a 19-year-old teaching assistant and her boyfriend had a run-in with a man who fits the description.
Keira Elston and her boyfriend were walking home at 1am on Sunday (26 June) after getting out of a taxi in the village of Yatton in Somerset.
She said that as they reached the Claverham Road roundabout, her boyfriend suddenly noticed someone and said: 'There's a man.'
The masked man in a latex gimp suit walked up to the pair and Keira remembers him standing with his legs apart and his arms outstretched 'like he was proud' and wanted her to remember the encounter.
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She said: "I'm still really shaken up by it. I've got the image in my head of him walking towards me and staring and I did not have a clue what his intention was.
"I dread to think what would have happened if I have been on my own."
After what she described as 'the most terrifying experience' of her life, Keira and her boyfriend ran home and get away from the stranger.
Police searched the area but found no trace of the man, who was described as 6 feet tall and slim, with extra patrols being carried out in response.
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A statement from Avon and Somerset Police said they are 'keeping an open mind' as to whether this incident is linked to previous appearances of the gimp man.
What exactly the masked gimp man is getting out of all of this is unclear, as in each of the encounters he's had with someone he's pretty much just stood there.
What compels a man to dress up in a gimp suit and run around villages scaring people at night, we can only wonder.
According to the BBC, in the past people in the local area have set up a group so they can walk around their villages in teams to ward off the strange man.
Last year a Claverham couple called the police when they spotted a strange man watching them through their window, while in 2019 a woman was terrified when man in a gimp suit 'charged' at her before running off.
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Two men were arrested on suspicion of indecency offences in connection with the 'gimp man' encounters in 2019 but both were released due to insufficient evidence.
Police are urging anyone with possible information including CCTV or dashcam footage that could help identify the man to call them on 101 and give the reference 57 of 26 June.