WAS a ballet dancer from Radnorshire wrongly framed as a ’Monster’ who stalked society women on the streets of Georgian London?

Rhynwick Williams, of Beguildy, had moved to London and become a ballet dancer but after he was sacked from the theatre fell into London’s underworld.

By June 1790, down and out of his luck in London, Williams was identified as the Monster who would walk up to beautiful and fashionable ladies in London, insult them with course language before stabbing them in the thigh or buttocks.

The attacks, that began earlier that year, led to a newspaper inspired frenzy in high society, with a £100 reward offered by John Julius Angerstein of the Lloyds Insurance brokers, vigilante monster hunters, mob attacks and pressure on the police to catch the culprit.

Dr Jan Bondeson, a retired consultant physician at Cardiff University, who uncovered the story of the Monster while conducting research into the period however believes Williams was wrongly convicted, twice, over the attacks.

"The London Monster mania of 1790 is just one example of what can be called the phantom attacker syndrome," said Dr Bondeson who as well as having written a book on the London Monster appears in a film by Canadian documentary film producer Dennis Mohr.

To read Dr Bondeson’s account of the London Monster get this week’s Brecon & Radnor Express on sale now