(First Edition)

DNA tests have proved that a man who hanged himself after writing a suicide note admitting the murder of a chambermaid was not responsible for a series of unsolved sex crimes in South Yorkshire, police Killer rapist Alan Conner has been cleared of a string of other sex crimes, police said yesterday.

The disclosure came after an inquest into the death of Alan which heard that drifter Conner, 32, who was found hanged in Cambridgeshire on 7 August. a convicted rapist, hanged himself after murdering a chambermaid, Sandra Parkinson, in Devon last month.

He was suspected of committing eight rapes and serious sexual assaults in the Dearne Valley his home area, South Yorkshire, between 1983 and 1986.

But South Yorkshire police said the results of DNA tests on samples from the eight crimes 'proved conclusively' that he was not responsible.

A spokeswoman for Devon and Cornwall police, who are co-ordinating the investigations following the murder in July of Sandra Parkinson, said: 'We've still got further forensic work to do to associate him with further crimes.' Conner is suspected of six killings and a number of other serious crimes and police are hoping to get results from the next batch of DNA tests on Monday.

Earlier tests revealed that Conner, a former miner, was responsible for raping Muriel Harvey, 67, a former magistrate Muriel Harvey in Ludlow, Shropshire, on Christmas Day 1992.

the rape is still suspected of six killings and a number of other serious crimes, and several police forces are carrying out inquiries.