'High Priest' who raped and raped again is finally caged - 25 years on

A MULTIPLE rapist who changed his name by deed poll to Joshua the High Priest and led a 
"charmed life" after attacking two teenage women in Sheffield was finally jailed today - 25 years after he claimed his first victim.
The crimes of 51 year-old Priest, were described by detectives who successfully reopened the cases - which date back to the mid-1980s - as "every woman's worst nightmare".

The dreadlocked Priest was arrested after the second incident but released when there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

A judge at Sheffield Crown Court heard how joiner Priest - who changed his name from Robert Wilson - violently raped an 18-year-old woman in Sheffield in 1984.

The court was told the young woman got into his car thinking it was taxi after she finished a shift behind a nightclub bar.

She was driven to a quiet area in the Broomhall area of the city where she was hit and raped.

Judge Graham Robinson heard she was severely traumatised by the incident to the extent she later tried to kill herself by cutting her wrists and lying down in a road hoping to be run over.

He was then told how, in 1985, Priest attacked a 17-year-old girl who had been staying at her boyfriend's house, also in the Broomhall area, after the defendant broke in looking for cash.

Priest threatened the girl with a "rusty sword" he found in the house and then a bread knife before committing a very serious sexual assault on her in the kitchen.

"Please no. Please God, don't do this to me"... Judge Graham Robinson heard that girl, who was a virgin, begged the defendant to stop, saying: "Please no. Please God, don't do this to me".

The judge said Priest's threats to her must have "chilled her to her core".

Grandfather Priest, of Sunny Bank, Broomhall, admitted rape and the second serious sexual assault at a hearing last month.

The court was told today that in 1986 he was convicted of another knifepoint rape in Broomhall which he committed just weeks after the attack on the 17-year-old.

The judge in 1986 jailed him for seven years for this rape and for robbing the victim, who was a prostitute.

He was also jailed for three years in 1993 for a sexual assault on a 10-year-old girl which took place in either 1991 or 1992.

Priest was arrested in connection with the attack on the 17-year-old in 1985, shortly after the incident, but never prosecuted.

He was re-arrested in connection with the 1984 and 1985 offences last year after South Yorkshire Police found a match between Priest's DNA on the national database and samples retained from the crime scene.

Priest's conviction and lengthy sentence will be hailed as another success for South Yorkshire Police's Cold Case Review team, which has seen a string of violent sex offenders put behind bars.

Det Sgt Ian Harding, who runs the unit on a day-to-day basis, said Priest was on the national DNA database because he had scores of convictions for offences involving robbery, burglary and drugs.

Mr Harding said he believed Priest could be responsible for other serious sex offences but he did not have the evidence to bring them to court at the moment.

Asked about Priest's crimes, the detectives said they were "particularly horrific".

Mr Harding said: "The offence of rape is horrific for any woman. But, given the aggravating features here, surely this has got to be every woman's worst nightmare."

He went on: "Unfortunately these two ladies have had to spend their lives learning to deal with what has happened to them.

"Thankfully they've now got this to help them deal with it."

The court heard how the 1984 investigation ran into difficulties when the victim eventually stopped co-operating because, she said, the police at the time were not dealing with her appropriately.

Judge Robinson heard how the woman alleged six male officers watched her undress but he was told this was unlikely to have been true.

The woman also alleged an officer at the time made a comment about her not wearing a bra.

The judge said: "I think it's accepted that at that time rape victims weren't treated with the same sensitivity that they are now."

Mr Harding said the fact the victim was now being believed was very important to her.

Asked about how Priest was arrested and released in 1985, the detective praised his predecessors for getting as far as they did. continues here

Appeal over sex attack

DETECTIVES have issued a description of a man they want to speak to in connection with a serious sexual assault on a 16-year-old girl.

The attack occurred in Rise Park at around 9.30pm on Monday, after the girl had been walking home after spending the evening with friends.

The girl had walked over Moorbridge and along Hucknall Road before turning into the disused railway line near the junction with Bestwood Park Drive West.

When the girl was about 100 metres along the path, a man came out of the bushes at the side of path and asked her for a light for his cigarette. After she gave him a light, the man grabbed her and pushed her to the ground before subjecting her to a serious sexual assault. He then made off towards Bestwood Park Drive West.

The victim has described her attacker as black, about 35, and well built. She also said he was unshaven and had stubble on his face. He was dressed all in black, and was wearing a black hooded top and black leather gloves.


She has been left extremely upset by the attack and is currently being cared for by her family.

The area of railway track that was cordoned off yesterday afternoon has undergone a full forensic examination and has now been released by detectives.

Detective Inspector Tim Jones, who is leading the investigation, said: "This was an unprovoked attack on a young girl walking home after spending time with friends, and she has been left deeply traumatised.

"We want to speak to anyone who witnessed this incident or who recognises the description of this man. We also would like anyone who saw someone acting suspiciously in the area at the time of the attack or who has any information about the incident, no matter how insignificant they may think it is, to contact police immediately.continues here

Gang rape in London

A couple of days ago I published a brief post from South Africa which reported that one in 4 males admitted to being rapists. But rape in the city is not just happening on a large scale in South Africa. Here in London a recent Channel 4 Dispatches documentary highlighted the prevalence of gang rape by young boys. Rape in the City was produced by award winning Sierra Leonean journalist., Sorious Samura who despite being “shot at, spat at and abused” in the making of past documentary’s was still shocked by what he found. During the war in Sierra Leone, Samura had witnessed a gang rape, something he associated with war and not what he expected to find on the streets of London.

I felt so angry and hurt watching these young boys casually denigrate girls with their attitude and words – I find it hard to express my own feelings. Listening to a group of young boys who spoke of a “line up” where a line of boys stand in wait whilst a girl performs oral sex, was appalling. The boys did not even think there was anything wrong in setting up and coercing girls to have sex with them. For them the girls were just trash to be abused.there are a disproportionate number of young black boys involved in gang rape... Girls spoke of the horrific experience of being gang raped, one as a punishment for her comments about a friends boyfriend who was a gang leader. She was repeatedly raped by 4 or 5 boys who later called more boys to join in. The attitude of the boys was that it was the girls fault and nothing to do with them and that if a girl was amongst them then she was asking for it. On being questioned about STD’s one boy said he would ‘batter’ any girl that passed on a STD.

In the course of my research I have been shocked to hear victims and witnesses to gang rape talk about the incidence of this crime as if it were just a fact of urban life. Girls are passed around groups of boys. Sometimes these girls initially consent because they want to be popular, but the incident then turns nasty. Sometimes a girl unwittingly walks into a trap, innocently visiting someone’s house to listen to music or watch a film and then discovering that a group of boys are laying in wait. Occasionally the gang rape is used to punish a girl for talking out of turn……….

And yet in the course of my Dispatches investigation I have discovered that gang rape is becoming part of the fabric of life for some young people living in our cities. But it’s not gang rape as you might imagine – it’s not, in most cases, the seizing of girls off the streets by total strangers. It’s happening in homes and at parties between young people who are known to each other, who run in the same crowds. And what’s most disturbing to me is that it’s often just the result of a group of boys deciding to force sex on an unwitting girl, who doesn’t realise that the invitation to someone’s house to watch DVDs or to hang out in the local park is a set up for gang rape. It can happen because a group of boys is attracted to a particular girl or just because she has annoyed one of them.

It is again shocking to learn that gang rape is not even recognised as a separate criminal offence and each rapist is tried as having committed an individual crime. It’s also clear from his report that the police are less than enthusiastic about dealing with rape particularly when it happens in the Black community. Only a few police forces even bothered to respond to his requests for statistics on rapes and rape convictions. The London Metropolitan Police did provide records that showed 108 gang rapes[3 or more rapists] were reported in London in 2008 – from that alone its not exaggerating to state that the actual gang rapes are probably at least double that. Three quarters of the convicted rapists were young black men…

On the face of it, these figures may appear small, but they are nevertheless statistically significant when you consider that nearly three quarters of those convicted were black. Why the incidence should be higher amongst young black men I do not know, but the stats speak for themselves, and on the ground youth workers and community leaders confirmed our conclusions. Sheldon Thomas, a Brixton youth worker, acknowledges that there are a disproportionate number of young black boys involved in gang rape, and it’s something that’s of real concern to him, ‘because we’ve got a situation in our community that needs to be addressed. And I don’t believe that we are addressing it’.

But whilst I would agree that we need to address the disproportionate incidence within the black community, I think it would be wrong to label this as a black issue. What we need is for people from across all communities and public sectors to engage with this issue, and colour must not get in the way of that.

The silence around these crimes allows them to continue with impunity. The silence of the police who do not offer protection to those few young girls and women who report rape. One young girl in the programme reported the rape but had to withdraw the charges after she was threatened, had bottles and objects thrown at her by the rapists. Why was she and her family not protected. How is she supposed to live in the same community where she has to pass these young men daily? Women have always been at the forefront in the movement against violence against women. Is it not about time for men to take a stand against rape? Not just Black men but all men. The responsibility to protect young girls and take an uncompromising stand against misogyny and rape on estates, the streets and in the playground has to come from the local authorities, the police, the schools and the community. .continues here

Gang rape: Is it a race issue?

A high proportion of such attacks appears to be carried out by young black men, according to Metropolitan Police statistics. Sorious Samura investigates this horrendous crime – and what it says about Britain today

In 1999 I witnessed a gang rape in Sierra Leone. I was forced to watch a group of rebel soldiers taking it in turns to rape a young girl in front of an audience of jeering men. It was the height of the civil conflict and rape had become a devastating weapon of war. When I moved to Britain I believed I had escaped such horrific sexual violence. As my Dispatches investigation tomorrow night shows, I was mistaken. Gang rape is happening here – and what I have found most disturbing as an African is that a disproportionate number of these attacks are being carried out by black or mixed-race young men.


Towards the end of last year, police and child welfare experts working on Channel 4's Street Weapons Commission told us of their concerns about gang rape. Then two big cases hit the headlines.

In December, nine schoolboys, some as young as 13 at the time of the attack, were convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl. She was dragged between tower blocks in Hackney where she was threatened with a knife, hit and raped during an ordeal that lasted an hour and a half – some of which was filmed on mobile phones. In January, three men were convicted of gang raping a 16-year-old with learning disabilities for two hours before dousing her with caustic soda in an effort to get rid of the evidence.

How prevalent is this crime and why it is happening in Britain? Despite the seriousness of the crime, I was amazed to discover that no national statistics exist: gang rape is simply not recorded as a separate crime category. So over a period of several months we set about collating our own. "There was just loads of boys and the girl's tights were ripped up, like, she was bleeding as well, because I think she was a virgin, and they were just taking turns on her basically, and she was crying, and I didn't get involved because I thought if I get involved they're gonna turn on me."

We approached the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Chief Police Officers, all 50 police forces, crown courts, barristers and rape referral centres to try to establish the numbers.

One of the few police forces to have begun recording the figures of reported gang rape is the Metropolitan Police. In 2008 alone, they received reports of 85 gang rapes. Using the Met's definition of gang rape – those involving three or more perpetrators – we began to look at the number of convictions. We tracked down 29 cases, from January 2006 to March 2009, in which a total of 92 young people were convicted of involvement in gang rape.

One fact stood out. Of those convicted, 66 were black or mixed race, 13 were white and the remainder were from other countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Clearly this is not a crime exclusive to black communities, but I found it impossible to ignore the fact that such a high proportion were committed by black and mixed-race young men. As a black man as well as a journalist, I wanted to understand what lay behind such attacks. So I spoke to victims, groups of black and mixed-race teenagers, youth and social workers and community leaders.

The groups of young men I met in London expressed some profoundly disturbing attitudes towards girls and sex. The boys explained how they make arrangements for "line-ups" in which one girl has oral sex with up to six or seven of them at one time. These arrangements might be made at school or on mobile phones.

Sometimes these girls initially consent because they want to be popular. But these events can spiral into rape because the boys consider that any girl who is prepared to agree to a line-up can be considered fair game. One boy told me: "If she wants to go and meet a bag of boys then she's probably a jezzie [slut], and if she's going to a house it's over – she's going to get beaten [have sex]."

In other instances, as some of the victims in our film describe, girls can unwittingly walk into a trap, innocently visiting someone's house to listen to music or watch a film only to discover that a group of boys are lying in wait. Or they might be hanging out with friends in a park and suddenly realise they have become surrounded by a group of boys intent on sex.

For both boys and girls, the line between this sort of group sex and rape seems to be blurred. A girl might agree to have oral sex with two or three boys but then be ordered to have sex with six or seven. The teenage girls I met told me that boys simply don't understand what rape is. And yet this is a crime that can ruin lives and is punishable by life imprisonment.

Occasionally gang rape is used to punish a girl for minor transgressions against gang members. In one of my most shocking interviews, I met a girl who admitted she had helped to set up girls for gang rape. As the girlfriend of a gang member, she organised these rapes, partly out of fear and partly to fit in.

She admitted she was terrified of being raped herself and had walked away when witnessing a girl being gang-raped at a party because she feared she might be next: "There was just loads of boys and the girl's tights were ripped up, like, she was bleeding as well, because I think she was a virgin, and they were just taking turns on her basically, and she was crying, and I didn't get involved because I thought if I get involved they're gonna turn on me."

The victims' descriptions of their attacks are horrific. One young victim likened her attack to being "pulled and pushed around like a rag doll", while another 14-year-old girl described her ordeal when she was gang raped by a total of nine boys who told her that she was not the only girl they had attacked. In that case, nine boys were subsequently convicted of raping her. The youngest perpetrator was just 12 years old.

I found there was concern among black communities about this violence. The Rev Joyce Daley, from the Black Parents Forum in Hackney, told me that gang rape is not a rare or one-off phenomenon. It is happening on a regular basis. She said: "It could actually explode on our very streets." Steve Griffith, a youth worker in King's Cross, said: "I see too much abuse of young women on the streets."

Gang rape, while constituting only a tiny percentage of all rapes in the UK, is a horrible reality in this country. The nature of the crime is so appalling that much more research needs to be carried out into its causes. But what seems evident from my investigation is that the key to preventing it will be changing the way young men view women and the kind of group sexual activity they are engaging in at such a young age.continues here

Is gang rape a non-white phenomenon?

Quarter of men in South Africa admit rape, survey finds

• Research exposes culture of sexual violence
• Government criticised for 'woeful' conviction rate

One in four men in South Africa have admitted to rape and many confess to attacking more than one victim, according to a study that exposes the country's endemic culture of sexual violence.

Three out of four rapists first attacked while still in their teens, the study found. One in 20 men said they had raped a woman or girl in the last year.

South Africa is notorious for having one of the highest levels of rape in the world. Only a fraction are reported, and only a fraction of those lead to a conviction.

The study into rape and HIV, by the country's Medical Research Council (MRC), asked men to tap their answers into a Palm Pilot device to guarantee anonymity. The method appears to have produced some unusually frank responses.

Professor Rachel Jewkes of the MRC, who carried out the research, said: "We have a very, very high prevalence of rape in South Africa. I think it is down to ideas about masculinity based on gender hierarchy and the sexual entitlement of men. It's rooted in an African ideal of manhood."

Jewkes and her colleagues interviewed a representative sample of 1,738 men in South Africa's Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.

Of those surveyed, 28% said they had raped a woman or girl, and 3% said they had raped a man or boy. Almost half who said they had carried out a rape admitted they had done so more than once, with 73% saying they had carried out their first assault before the age of 20.

The study, which had British funding, also found that men who are physically violent towards women are twice as likely to be HIV-positive. They are also more likely to pay for sex and to not use condoms.It's rooted in an African ideal of manhood."

Any woman raped by a man over the age of 25 has a one in four chance of her attacker being HIV-positive.

One in 10 men said they had been forced to have sex with another man. Many find it difficult to report such attacks to the police in subcultures where the concept of homosexuality is taboo.

South Africa's government has been repeatedly criticised for failing to address the crisis. Only 7% of reported rapes are estimated to lead to a conviction. Jewkes said: "There's been a lot of concern about the way the criminal justice system works, because it's still woeful."

Before his election as president, Jacob Zuma stood trial for the rape of a family friend. His supporters demonstrated at the court house, verbally attacked his accuser and sang "burn the bitch, burn the bitch". Zuma was eventually acquitted.

Jewkes added: "The social space for debating these gender issues is now smaller than it was a few years ago. We need our government to show political leadership in changing attitudes. We need South African men, from the top to the grassroots, to take responsibility."

Anti-rape campaigners said the shocking figures demonstrated the need for reform. Dean Peacock, co-director of the Sonke Gender Justice project, said: "We need to make sure the criminal justice system is held to account. We have lots of discussion in this country, but not enough action is taken to ensure that perpetrators will face consequences."

Zuma, a polygamist, was criticised for emphasising his Zulu tribal identity and singing militant songs during this year's election campaign. He made comments that outraged anti-Aids and gender campaigners.

Peacock added: "We're at a complicated moment in South African history with revived traditionalism and there's a danger of gender transformation being lost.

"We hear men saying, 'If Jacob Zuma can have many wives, I can have many girlfriends.' The hyper-masculine rhetoric of the Zuma campaign is going to set back our work in challenging the old model of masculinity."continues here

'Night Stalker' serial rapist strikes nine times in the last fortnight

Britain's most wanted serial burglar and sex attacker - a man dubbed 'Night Stalker' - may have struck again, detectives fear.

Specialist officers have been brought in to investigate nine burglaries at properties in south London over the last fortnight.

They fear a serial rapist is behind the flurry of crimes.

The light-skinned black man, responsible for more than 100 offences dating back to 1990, preys on the elderly.

Some of his victims, both men and women, have been raped and sexually assaulted.

He often wears a mask and wakes his victims by shining a torch in their faces.

Police said only one of the burglaries has been linked conclusively after DNA was recovered.

The criminal is already thought to be behind 25 raids this year.

Two of the break-ins took place a short distance from each other in Shirley, near Croydon.

The victims were aged 91 and 93.

Forensic experts scoured the houses as officers from Operation Minstead, the unit set up to identify and capture the suspect, were alerted.

The burglaries bring the total number of raids linked to the man during a 19-year reign of terror to at least 106.

The attacks have taken place in clusters in south and south-east London, including Dulwich, Orpington, Norwood, Downham, Lee, West Wickham and Bickley.

The culprit is thought to be an employed black male, aged between 35 and 45, who masks his crimes behind the veneer of a respectable life.

He is believed to have a sexual fixation with the elderly as his victims have been aged 68 to 99, with an average age in the 80s.

Police said the man has raped four victims, one of whom suffered horrific injuries and almost died in surgery.

On more than 24 other occasions he sexually assaulted his victims during raids police have linked through DNA and other forensic evidence.

Although the vast majority of his victims have been women, police said they also included 10 elderly men, one of whom suffered a sexual attack.

Most offences have taken place in south-east London, although the man may also have links to Brighton.

In 2006, detectives flew to Trinidad to make an appeal for information after forensic techniques showed the suspect originates from the Windward Islands.

At the time, Detective Superintendent Simon Morgan, who is led the investigation, said the suspect has periods of 'non-offending' which suggest he is not always in the UK.

He added: 'The purpose of our visit to Trinidad is to try and narrow down our list of possible suspects by using the very latest forensic science techniques.

'We believe there may be links down the generations between our suspect and the countries of the Caribbean.

'We want to appeal for information that may assist in tracing this individual and stop his offending.

'To date, we know that the offender has periods of non-offending that may suggest that he is not always in the UK.'

A reward of up to £40,000 remains on offer to anyone who can provide information that leads police to him.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman today confirmed that one woman was assaulted during the recent spate of burglaries. continues here

Teenagers who laughed as they raped girl they met on Facebook are jailed for six years

Two men who laughed as they raped a girl they met on Facebook have been locked up for six years each.

John-Claude Rugero, 19, of Ilford, and Prince Afriyie, 17, of Chigwell, were found guilty of raping the 17-year-old girl on a roundabout in Colchester, Essex.

The girl, who cannot be named, told jurors how she first chatted to the defendants on social networking sites Facebook and Bebo, two years before she was raped on a roundabout on August 12 last year.

Stephanie Farrimond, prosecuting, told the jury of seven women and five men that the teenage girl was a 'regular user' of social networking sites and used Bebo and Facebook among others.

The teenage girl gave her number to Rugero after meeting him online, Chelmsford Crown Court in Essex heard.

On August 11, 2008, Rugero, 19, contacted the girl to say he would be going to Colchester the next day to see her on her birthday.

The following day, the girl went into the town centre drinking with her sister-in-law, the court was told.

During the evening, she claims the defendants contacted her by phone but she did not arrange to meet with them.

Her sister-in-law went home and shortly afterwards the girl decided to go home herself, the jury heard.

But by chance she bumped into Rugero and his friend, who were with three other men in a car, at a roundabout as she walked home.

The men followed the girl into the underpass of the roundabout and when she tried to walk away they pulled her back into a garden in the middle of the roundabout.

Miss Farrimond said the 17-year-old defendant raped her first while Rugero held her shoulders and then 'immediately after he had finished Rugero took his turn'.

The victim told the court: 'When it was happening, my body closed down, all I could move was my eyes.

'JC didn't speak - all he did was laugh.'

Rugero, of Hainault, east London, and his co-defendant, from Chigwell, east London, each denied one count of rape but where found guilty by a jury at the trial. continues here

Youths who gang-raped girl in stairwells are named

Seven schoolboys aged as young as 13 who joked as they took turns to rape a 14-year-old girl because she “disrespected” a gang member can be identified today for the first time. 

The girl was subjected to an ordeal lasting several hours in stairwells around a housing estate in East London, parts of which were filmed on mobile phones. 

O’Neil Denton, known as Hitman by the Kingshold Boys gang, now aged 16, ordered his friends to snatch the girl from the streets of Hackney after she was said to have insulted him. The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was attacked while walking home from school in April last year. 

After being disturbed, Denton and some of the group took their victim to another stairwell where she was forced to commit a sex act at knifepoint. The boys rang friends during the attack, and a crowd began to gather, including Weiled Ibrahim, now aged 17, Jayden Ryan, Yusuf Raymond, and Jack Bartle, aged 16, and Alexander Vanderpuije and Cleon Brown, both 15. The final, and worst, assault took place on the ninth floor of another block of flats where the girl was raped repeatedly during a 50-minute ordeal. When she tried to fight back, junior members of the gang kicked her and smashed her head against a wall. 

Nicola Merrick, for the prosecution, said: “The victim knew, of course, she was going to be raped again. She could hear Ibrahim and others saying there were other boys who would rape her badly.” 

Eventually 15 boys assembled on the stairwell. “The boys threatened her throughout, intimidating her and physically assaulting her. Ibraham slapped her face and pulled her hair whilst another banged her head against the wall and someone threw a bottle of water at her. 

“She broke down, turned her face to the wall and wept. The boys referred to this as crocodile tears.” In a newspaper interview the victim relived some of the ordeal. She said: “I was taken to the ninth floor of the tower block where I was thrown on to the landing. Another gang member pulled a knife out and I was forced into more sex acts with five others. I was like a zombie. 

“There were so many grabbing at me, pulling my clothes off. I’d reached the point of giving up. I really thought I was going to die. Then I recognised a boy I’d known for years. I felt relieved. He was a friend. But when I asked him to help me, he said, ‘No, I’m with my boys now’. I will never forget that.” 

The girl escaped only when a 14-year-old boy, a football apprentice, realised what was happening and, ignoring the threats of others, walked her out of the premises. Six of the defendants were arrested within hours, because of CCTV footage, and the rest were in custody within two days. None of the gang, who were of Caribbean, Ethiopian, Moroccan and British descent, showed any remorse during questioning or throughout the six-week trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court. 

Two others, who were convicted of rape on the basis that they “aided and abetted”, remain anonymous. 

All nine, from East London, will be sentenced on Monday. 

How I suffered: the victim’s story

In an impact statement the victim described how she had attempted suicide, could not leave her home alone and was always looking over her shoulder. 

She said: “My whole world has been turned upside down. Trying to get back to normal has been very difficult. I used to have a lot of friends. I used to go places. I used to like shopping and the cinema and meeting new people. 

“I long for all that back — instead I feel like a prisoner, having to look over my shoulder everywhere I go. Although I used to find the unexpected fun, the unexpected is now frightening and not exciting.” She suffers recurring nightmares and wakes feeling tired. The teenager said she hated herself for not screaming more or fighting off the rapists but was “frozen with fear”  continues here

14-YEAR-OLD VICTIM ATTACKED BY 19 THUGS RELIVES HER NIGHTMARE

IN the shadows of a grimy tower block, the baying mob swarmed all over the sobbing schoolgirl like feral dogs—and savagely stole her childhood.

Again, and again, and again, they took turns to violate her 14-year-old innocence at knifepoint. There were 19 of them.

As she shrunk into a ball pleading for mercy, she was frog-marched round the grim east London estate in a two-hour display of depravity that shook all Britain.

Today, cuddling a pink teddy bear from her toddler years in the police safe house that has become her world, the young gang rape victim tells the terrifying story to the News of the World.

“They punched me, kicked me, smashed my head against the wall, stripped me and slammed me onto my back,” says the girl we are calling Jane to protect her identity. “More gang members were arriving by the minute. They were loud and jeering.

“They asked me if I was a virgin. When I told them I was, they laughed and said I wasn’t going to be one any more.”

And so began the ordeal that would change Jane’s life forever. In BROAD DAYLIGHT, she was dragged around THREE different locations and repeatedly attacked.

At least FIVE passing witnesses turned their faces the other way while the 19 gang-members aged between 13 to 16 fell upon their prey.

Earlier this month nine of the adolescent savages were convicted of kidnapping and raping Jane.

                                                                   Trigger

The spark for their monstrous brutality was a simple schoolgirl remark she made to a pal, telling her she was right to think about ditching her boyfriend.


But that boyfriend was a member of a notorious gang called The Kingshold Boys in Hackney—and when what Jane had said was reported back to him her fate was sealed.


“The ring leader’s girl and I were schoolfriends,” says Jane. “I said I didn’t think he was right for her. But she told him what I’d said.”


Jane shivers with fear in her chair in the safe house she rarely leaves. She has become a virtual prisoner here because of post-traumatic stress disorder. The physical scars have healed but the fear remains.

It is evident in her voice as she relives, in her own words, the chilling nightmare that began in March 2007.


“I bumped into her boyfriend after our chat and he accused me of trying to break up his relationship,” she said. “He went to hit me but a lad with him stopped him. I was very frightened. Soon people were telling me the gang were going to get me.


“The day it happened I was walking home from my cousin’s after school. As I turned the corner, the ring leader was waiting with three friends.


“They pinned me to a fence. Then the leader put me in a headlock and told me I was coming with them.”


Jane was marched into a block of flats on the rundown Parkside estate yards from her home. She was hurled under the stairs and ordered to perform oral sex on all four youths.

“One of the gang pulled out a knife and told me if I didn’t do what they wanted, they would stab me up. They were pushing it into my throat. I was crying and pleading with them. At that point, a lady walked past us in the flats and I made a run for it. But the leader came after me. He struck me hard on the head, put me in a headlock again and started dragging me down the road.”


At that moment she could have been saved the horror that lay ahead at the next location, a small block of flats in Skipworth Road.


“It was so obvious I was in distress,” she says. “I was crying, in a headlock and surrounded by four boys. But on the way we passed a father with two children and another two men. None of them came to help. They just looked the other way.
                                                                       Knife

“I was taken up the stairs of the next block to a first-floor landing. They threw me into a corner and again the sex acts started. They told me they would kill me if I didn’t.


“Then one of them, who had a bike with him, told me to take off my tracksuit bottoms or he’d put me in hospital. I was shaking so hard. I was only just gone 14. Mum had only just started letting me go out close to home on my own. When I wouldn’t take my bottoms off, the ring leader punched me in the eye while the others kicked my legs and lower body.


“Then the bike boy slammed me onto the concrete floor on my back and, as the others held me down, he raped me.


“One of them was trying to video it on his mobile. I was crying because it was hurting so much—but the ring leader just laughed.”


Then came another chance to save her—a woman walked past them into one of the flats.


“They threw a jacket over me and told me to shut up as she went past. Then they said I could go. I pulled my tracksuit bottoms on and ran. But they were playing with me—they ran after me and caught me.”
Battered

Now battered Jane was dragged to a 10-storey tower block on the grim Frampton Estate. She says: “More gang members arrrived. All of them were on their phones calling others up. They were surrounding me, laughing and whooping. They were like a pack of hunting dogs.”


Along came the fourth witness to abandon Jane to her fate.


“We went past a woman and she mouthed to me, ‘Are you all right?’ I shook my head and I know she saw the fear in my eyes. I thought she would get help—but she never did.


“I was taken to the ninth floor of the tower block where I was thrown onto the landing. Another gang member pulled a knife out and I was forced into more sex acts with five others. I was like a zombie.


“In the end, there were 19 there. They were all laughing and encouraging each other, calling me a slag and a ‘headchick’. Some were punching me. I was slammed against the wall six times. There were so many grabbing at me, pulling my clothes off. I’d reached the point of giving up. I really thought I was going to die.


“Then I recognised a boy I’d known for years, I felt relieved. He was a friend. But when I asked him to help me, he looked at me hard and said, ‘No, I’m with my boys now’. I will never forget that.


“Then I was forced into a sex act with him too—and then with others. If I refused they smashed my head against the wall.” continues here

Teenage girl 'gang raped and covered in burning caustic soda'

A teenager with learning difficulties was gang raped by up to ten youths who then showered her 'head to toe' with burning caustic soda, a court heard today. 

The attackers left the girl 'naked, screaming, crying and in a desperate state' as they ran away laughing, it was alleged.

They had picked on the shy 16-year-old because they claimed she was a 'dirty ho who was asking for it', Wood Green Crown Court in North London heard.

The girl was left traumatised and severely disfigured by the attack. 

Prosecutor Rosina Cottage said she may have been raped because she had recently slept with three men known to the gang.

'She was shy and insecure and with learning difficulties and thought that she would be liked by these boys if she had sex with them.

'Of course, the world can be an old-fashioned place and they did not like her. 

'They thought she was, to use the words of a number of these defendants, ''dirty''.'

On January 9 this year Mark Hendricks, one of the men she had previously slept with, allegedly lured her to a unoccupied house in Tottenham, North London, where the other youths were waiting.

Miss Cottage said: 'She had no idea what was in store for her.

'They raped her ..., and when they had enough of her, and she dared to say no, her body was burned from head to toe with caustic soda.

'She was naked and unprotected, and as she screamed they laughed and ran away.'

As the alleged attackers fled, a neighbour heard screams and banging coming from the house.

'When she went in there was a naked woman at the top of the stairs. She was screaming constantly for help. She said that she had been raped.'

A harrowing 999 call made by the neighbour was played to the court in which the girl's howling screams could be heard in the background.

At hospital she was sprayed with water jets to clear the caustic soda from her.

But her injuries were so bad that she was unable to talk for over a month and remained in hospital for several weeks.

In all, half her body was burned, leaving her permanently disfigured. She has been operated on several times and still requires further surgery.

The court heard that immediately after the rape some of the gang gathered at a nearby friend's house where a witness described how they were 'having a laugh, and then started to talk about some madness and being chased down the road'.

When one of the victim's friends telephoned defendant Bradley Daley-Smith, who she suspected of being involved in the attack, he told her that 'she was a ho and she deserved it'. 

He added that it was not rape and the boys 'were not going to prison for this'. 

Daley-Smith, 21, Bruno Abrantes, 24, Jason Brew, 18, Miguel Almedia, 22, Ismail Opeyemi, 20, Hector Muaimba, 20, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named, all deny two charges of rape and one of grievous bodily harm.  continues here

Crack-addict serial rapist stabbed mother to death in front of her son after being freed on bail

A serial rapist murdered a young mother in front of her baby son just days after being bailed over another sex attack.

Crack cocaine addict Christopher Braithwaite, 22, was arrested for a rape in August last year but was released the next day.

He killed 23-year- old Stacey Westbury a week later.

The case will reignite debate on whether bail should be granted to those accused of serious offences. Government lawyers recently ruled that a blanket ban on bail for murder suspects would breach their human rights.

Braithwaite is today beginning a life sentence, and the prosecution has asked for six charges of rape against two other young women to remain on his file.

Braithwaite denies carrying out those six rapes, but he dramatically halted his trial this week to admit sexually attacking and murdering Stacey.

He was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in her twenties on August 9 last year, but was released the next day pending further police investigation.

Then on August 17 he killed Stacey in her home in West London while her ten-month-old son Kayden lay in his cot yards away.

Katherine Rake of the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for justice for women, said yesterday: ‘The fact Braithwaite was released on bail shows that criminal justice agencies have utterly failed to implement adequate safeguards.

‘There is an urgent need for the Government to do more to ensure that better evidence is collected and acted upon when dealing with rape cases.’

The Old Bailey heard that Braithwaite, who had been at school with Stacey, sexually attacked her before killing her.

Her father Ken found her body 18 hours later, with her face bloodied and bruised from repeated punches. She had been strangled and stabbed in the neck, stomach and right hand with a nine-inch blade.

Her son was still in his cot, while his mother’s body lay on the sofa yards away. After the killing, jobless Braithwaite had tried to wash the blood from Stacey’s naked corpse, before ransacking her flat trying to find anything he could sell for drugs.

Stacey’s mother Lorraine Beasley, a dinner lady, said that Kayden had suffered nightmares and would scream hysterically if strangers came to the family’s home.

In a statement read to the court, she said: ‘Kayden has had his first birthday, which every child should spend with their Mum. Christmas was just terrible. Stacey should have been with us to watch her son open his presents.’

An statement from Mr Westbury was also read to the judge before sentencing. He said: ‘I can only describe the initial feeling of discovering what had happened to Stacey as numb shock, to be replaced very quickly by the most awful pain I have ever felt.

‘I also felt a white-hot rage that someone could do this to my little girl. On the day of Stacey’s funeral I stood at her graveside. You shouldn’t have to bury your children." continues here