Eric McKenna: Convicted rapist's family to exhume father's body in belief DNA could prove he committed 1980s attacks

'Granting permission in no way supports the accusation being made against the deceased,' church says

Eric McKenna, who was convicted in 2018 of raping two women in the 1980s. DNA evidence linked him to the attacks (Northumbria Police)

The family of a convicted rapist have won the right to dig up his father's body for DNA testing because they believe he may have been responsible for the assaults.

Eric McKenna, 60, was jailed for 23 years last March for the rapes of two women in Newcastle and Gateshead in the 1980s.

After he was cautioned for urinating on a neighbour’s plant pot, DNA swabs linked him with the previously unsolved attacks.

In a bid to prove his innocence, the body of his father, Thomas McKenna, is to be exhumed from a cemetery in Newcastle after his relatives gained permission from the local Church of England diocese.

The family believes the elder McKenna, who died in 1993, may have been behind the rapes.

Prosecutors say they are fighting against billion-to-one odds.

After agreeing to the exhumation, the Diocese of Newcastle said in a statement: “The Church of England will only grant permission to exhume a person’s remains from consecrated ground in exceptional circumstances. Recent cases considered by the Consistory Court have laid out principles that each chancellor should follow when considering an application for exhumation.

“Our chancellor Euan Duff has followed these principles when considering this case, although he has been very clear that granting permission in no way supports the accusation being made against the deceased. It is recognition that the DNA analysis may help settle this matter once and for all.”

Following his conviction last year, police said Eric McKenna “did not flinch” when he was challenged over the rapes.

Detective Constable Mick Wilson said he "thought he had got away with his crimes but a neighbourly dispute and a moment of stupidity has landed him in prison for 23 years.”

On the cases' conclusion, the Crown Prosecution Service said that after McKenna was arrested, samples were taken that confirmed his DNA profile matched those retrieved from samples taken during the two rape investigations.

They said the chance, in each case, of there being such a match if he had not been the source of the DNA in those earlier samples was estimated to be one in 1 billion.

Northumbria Police said it was not currently involved in the process.

Additional reporting by Press Association