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This is the horrible story of my rape; it may be very disturbing. I tell it because I want to see what people's reactions are to what the defence lawyer is playing at.
I was raped a year ago, in July 2002. The man was a stranger. I'd been out drinking, got very drunk by mistake and had fallen asleep on the wrong train home; ended up in a far away station, from there got a black cab home to within 500 yards of my flat, felt car sick, paid the driver, and got out the cab to walk the last 500 yards home as I was feeling sick; in fact, I was sick in a bush, then tottered home. I don't remember much about the walk home; there was nothing unusual about it save my chagrin and feeling quite ill. I was mortified by my drunken behaviour and desperate to brush my teeth and go to bed.
I went to bed, and the doorbell rang a short while later. Thinking it was my partner, who'd been working late all week, forgetting his keys and needing to be let in, I went to the door. A voice said ' I'm your neighbour, help, there's been an accident, a car crash outside'. I opened the door a crack - and in burst a man, who punched me to the floor, beat me savagely, raped and bit me, smothered me so I could not breathe.
He basically smashed my face in, then attempted oral sex, beat me some more, tied me up, and beat me some more. He was turned on by my struggles; I found I went numb and then I feigned death, and luckily he left; I then passed out. I came round after an unknown amount of time - maybe 30 mins, maybe an hour, and found myself naked, with a wire noose round my neck, unable to see properly as my eyes were so bashed in, though I could see a little from one eye. I managed to get up off the floor, escape from the flat, though my hands were tied behind my back, and raise the alarm, by struggling to the upstairs landing where the first floor neighbours lived. They did not answer the door but they must have called 999. I then got downstairs and managed to unlock the front door Yale lock with my hands tied behind my back (how??), and ran into the street, where a squad car had just arrived. I was then taken to hospital in an ambulance, in a state of severe trauma. As you might imagine.
I co-operated fully with the police over the following hours and weeks, allowed forensic examination of my body and my flat was a crime scene and sealed and forensically searched for nearly 2 weeks so I was homeless. I gave many hours of video statements to the police and I even went back to my flat - the crime scene - with a police video team. Which was very traumatic.
In the autumn a man was caught and charged with a violent street robbery. His DNA matched my attacker's. So we had our rapist. An 18 year old Jamaican, who'd entered the UK on a false passport in April 2002. He was charged with my rape (and GBH, & robbery - after he'd attacked me he had helped himself to a passport, currency and CD walkman before leaving).
In the new year he pleaded guilty to the rape only at a plea and direction hearing. He remained in custody and was investigated for several other assaults/robberies (not rapes) on women, and I was told that he would be charged and sentenced for the robberies and my rape all together. This would delay things and I was annoyed but accepted it.
However, it has turned into a farce. There have been numerous adjournments and the reasons given have included not having the CCTV tapes of the robberies 'in a fit condition,' not having psychiatrist's reports on the rapist done in time, the defendant then deciding to plead not guilty to further robbery charges, then suddenly pleading on the day of trial, and now, over a year later, it is suddenly announced, on the eve of sentencing, that the defence wishes to have a 2 day Newton trial, since the defendant is disputing the material facts of the case. He's had a year to raise this - why on the week of sentencing (and the anniversary of the rape) - does he raise it now?
He is basically saying that I met the rapist in the car park, kissed him, and practically dragged him back to my flat, where I pressed myself against him, took off my clothes, and kissed him, and instigated sex. Basically - that I raped him!
Now, I do not understand how a man who raped me last summer, who was caught in the autumn, pleaded guilty in the winter, can still be putting me through a trial in the late summer of the following year?
How can the defendant string things out like this? The defence lawyer seems to be using every trick in the book to delay, adjourn, delay, adjourn, and now put me through the 2 day cross examination process - to what end? How can justice be so served? He's guilty, he's admitted it. I have terrible injuries and have suffered from post traumatic stress for a year.
Now I am frantic with fear of what this defence lawyer will do and say to me in court - it has always been a phobia of mine, to be humiliated and cross examined, called a liar, a slut, a drunk, a fantasist, a loony in a court. I am none of these things. Even though I know it is defence lawyer tricks, it is something I am dreading, a 'second rape', the cross exam.
I even have nightmares about being stood in court and I am naked and the court laughs at me. Frankly I am a mess, I am signed off work and suffering from post traumatic stress. I am a total victim. Still suffering from an unfortunate variety of unpleasant physical and mental symptoms .He is a robber, a rapist, a criminal who entered the UK on a stolen passport - why is his fantastical lying version of events being entertained? Why the public expense of being given a public Newton trial? What justice is served by dogmatically sticking to the letter of the law in this way? EVEN IF I HAD INVITED HIM - WHICH I DIDN'T - HOW DOES THAT MITIGATE ANYTHING? What, please, someone tell me, is the point of all these clever legal games?
It is the law machine, [the lawyer] and his clever clever defence lawyer tactics and stringing things out that have driven me to this point. Presently I am unable to work and now must ask my company to arrange and pay for further cover for me, as well as pay my salary - which I am not sure they will want to do for much longer. I am unable to move on. I am at my wit's end.
I was raped a year ago, in July 2002. The man was a stranger. I'd been out drinking, got very drunk by mistake and had fallen asleep on the wrong train home; ended up in a far away station, from there got a black cab home to within 500 yards of my flat, felt car sick, paid the driver, and got out the cab to walk the last 500 yards home as I was feeling sick; in fact, I was sick in a bush, then tottered home. I don't remember much about the walk home; there was nothing unusual about it save my chagrin and feeling quite ill. I was mortified by my drunken behaviour and desperate to brush my teeth and go to bed.
I went to bed, and the doorbell rang a short while later. Thinking it was my partner, who'd been working late all week, forgetting his keys and needing to be let in, I went to the door. A voice said ' I'm your neighbour, help, there's been an accident, a car crash outside'. I opened the door a crack - and in burst a man, who punched me to the floor, beat me savagely, raped and bit me, smothered me so I could not breathe.
He basically smashed my face in, then attempted oral sex, beat me some more, tied me up, and beat me some more. He was turned on by my struggles; I found I went numb and then I feigned death, and luckily he left; I then passed out. I came round after an unknown amount of time - maybe 30 mins, maybe an hour, and found myself naked, with a wire noose round my neck, unable to see properly as my eyes were so bashed in, though I could see a little from one eye. I managed to get up off the floor, escape from the flat, though my hands were tied behind my back, and raise the alarm, by struggling to the upstairs landing where the first floor neighbours lived. They did not answer the door but they must have called 999. I then got downstairs and managed to unlock the front door Yale lock with my hands tied behind my back (how??), and ran into the street, where a squad car had just arrived. I was then taken to hospital in an ambulance, in a state of severe trauma. As you might imagine.
I co-operated fully with the police over the following hours and weeks, allowed forensic examination of my body and my flat was a crime scene and sealed and forensically searched for nearly 2 weeks so I was homeless. I gave many hours of video statements to the police and I even went back to my flat - the crime scene - with a police video team. Which was very traumatic.
In the autumn a man was caught and charged with a violent street robbery. His DNA matched my attacker's. So we had our rapist. An 18 year old Jamaican, who'd entered the UK on a false passport in April 2002. He was charged with my rape (and GBH, & robbery - after he'd attacked me he had helped himself to a passport, currency and CD walkman before leaving).
In the new year he pleaded guilty to the rape only at a plea and direction hearing. He remained in custody and was investigated for several other assaults/robberies (not rapes) on women, and I was told that he would be charged and sentenced for the robberies and my rape all together. This would delay things and I was annoyed but accepted it.
However, it has turned into a farce. There have been numerous adjournments and the reasons given have included not having the CCTV tapes of the robberies 'in a fit condition,' not having psychiatrist's reports on the rapist done in time, the defendant then deciding to plead not guilty to further robbery charges, then suddenly pleading on the day of trial, and now, over a year later, it is suddenly announced, on the eve of sentencing, that the defence wishes to have a 2 day Newton trial, since the defendant is disputing the material facts of the case. He's had a year to raise this - why on the week of sentencing (and the anniversary of the rape) - does he raise it now?
He is basically saying that I met the rapist in the car park, kissed him, and practically dragged him back to my flat, where I pressed myself against him, took off my clothes, and kissed him, and instigated sex. Basically - that I raped him!
Now, I do not understand how a man who raped me last summer, who was caught in the autumn, pleaded guilty in the winter, can still be putting me through a trial in the late summer of the following year?
How can the defendant string things out like this? The defence lawyer seems to be using every trick in the book to delay, adjourn, delay, adjourn, and now put me through the 2 day cross examination process - to what end? How can justice be so served? He's guilty, he's admitted it. I have terrible injuries and have suffered from post traumatic stress for a year.
Now I am frantic with fear of what this defence lawyer will do and say to me in court - it has always been a phobia of mine, to be humiliated and cross examined, called a liar, a slut, a drunk, a fantasist, a loony in a court. I am none of these things. Even though I know it is defence lawyer tricks, it is something I am dreading, a 'second rape', the cross exam.
I even have nightmares about being stood in court and I am naked and the court laughs at me. Frankly I am a mess, I am signed off work and suffering from post traumatic stress. I am a total victim. Still suffering from an unfortunate variety of unpleasant physical and mental symptoms .He is a robber, a rapist, a criminal who entered the UK on a stolen passport - why is his fantastical lying version of events being entertained? Why the public expense of being given a public Newton trial? What justice is served by dogmatically sticking to the letter of the law in this way? EVEN IF I HAD INVITED HIM - WHICH I DIDN'T - HOW DOES THAT MITIGATE ANYTHING? What, please, someone tell me, is the point of all these clever legal games?
It is the law machine, [the lawyer] and his clever clever defence lawyer tactics and stringing things out that have driven me to this point. Presently I am unable to work and now must ask my company to arrange and pay for further cover for me, as well as pay my salary - which I am not sure they will want to do for much longer. I am unable to move on. I am at my wit's end.
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