In the new trial Williams' defence lawyer was Irish poet Theophilus Swift, whose tactic was to accuse Porter of a scheme to collect the reward, Porter having married Coleman, who had received the reward money. One of the claimed victims confessed that she had not been attacked at all. During the trial, spectators cheered the witnesses for the prosecution and insulted those for the defence. Magistrates charged Williams with defacing clothing -a crime that in the Bloody Code carried a harsher penalty than assault or attempted murder. He admitted that he had once approached Porter but had an alibi for another of the attacks. Williams protested his innocence but, given the climate of panic, it was futile. He eventually took Williams to meet Porter, who fainted when she saw him. When Rhynwick Williams, a 23-year-old florist, reached his house, Coleman confronted him, accusing him of insulting a lady, and challenged him to a duel. Her lover, John Coleman, began a slow pursuit of the man, who realised he was being followed. On 13 June 1790, Anne Porter claimed she had spotted her attacker in St. Local pickpockets and other criminals used the panic to their advantage they picked someone's valuables, pointed at him, shouted 'Monster!', and escaped during the resulting mayhem. There were false accusations and attacks against suspicious people. Fashionable ladies began to wear copper pans over their petticoats. Armed vigilantes began to patrol in the city. Philanthropist John Julius Angerstein promised a reward of £100 for capture of the perpetrator. Londoners were outraged when the Bow Street Runners, the London police force, failed to capture the man. Some men even founded a No Monster Club and began to wear club badges on their lapels to show that they were not the Monster. Descriptions of the attacker varied greatly. The press soon named the maniac The Monster. In two years the number of reported victims amounted to more than 50.

Some women were found with their clothes cut and others had substantial wounds. In all cases the alleged assailant would escape before help arrived. Other accounts reported that he would invite prospective victims to smell a fake nosegay and then stab them in the face with the spike hiding within the flowers. Some reports claimed an attacker had knives fastened to his knees. According to the victims (most of them from wealthier families), a large man had followed them, shouted obscenities and stabbed them in the buttocks. The first reports of the Monster appeared in 1788. The attacker had a signature behaviour of piquerism, the pricking or stabbing of victims with a knife, pin or needle.

The London Monster was the name given to an alleged attacker of women in London between 17. The likeness was created from various reports from alleged victims and before the arrest of Rhynwick Williams.

, artist's depiction of the London Monster attacking a woman.

The London Monster by Donna Scott