RAPE AND SEXUAL OFFENCES
COUNT 8
One of the most brutal gang attacks of recent years took place in the summer of 2000, when 37-year old Delphi Newman, a visitor to this country, was raped on the towpath of the Grand Union Canal in West London, by a gang of five boys and one girl. After the Old Bailey trial, the victim waived her legal right to anonymity, to reveal the full brutality of the attack. Mr Moore is determined that after Operation Sapphire’s review, police will be able to lessen the chance of such cases taking place. He said: “We have six dedicated officers who will compare all the new information to that received over the past decade.”
His predecessor, John Yates, who was recently promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner, sparked a debate in January 2004 about political correctness, when he explained in a Radio Four broadcast, why the Met no longer used the term “gang rape” and instead labelled these attacks as “group rapes”. He said: “It is not the ethnicity that counts here, it’s the way we treat the victim. Gang rape suggests groups of feral youths roaming London. That is not the case. Group rape, by our definition, is when two or more people are present or aware of the conspiratorial element of the attacks. It’s not less nasty, it’s less emotive.”
Senior Scotland Yard officers are well aware that black youths are disproportionately involved in rape cases and are treading carefully, because the issue is fraught with political dangers. Dr. Tony Sewell, a lecturer at Kingston University in London and a columnist for the black newspaper The Voice said: “Because of the guilt they had in the past, the police have become too politically correct. What’s the difference between a
gang rape and a group rape? For young men, the gang takes over. In school, teachers don’t discipline these boys. They’re frightened of being accused of being racist.”
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You will no doubt be horrified to hear about the awful offences committed by the following sex-crimes beast, who had also been released from jail too early, thus giving him the opportunities to strike again.
Matthew Thomas, 43, snatched a mother of two off the street and raped her in a flat, where he had already murdered another woman. After kidnapping her as she left work, he repeatedly raped her during a two hour ordeal. As her nightmare unfolded in the lounge of the flat, this latest victim had no idea that the body of murdered Collette Magee, 44, was lying just feet away from her in the kitchen. Thomas had stabbed her to death just a few hours beforehand, at her flat in Luton, just 6 days after she had married her second husband. The court heard that the amazing courage displayed by the rape victim, aged 45, saved her life. When her husband called her on her mobile phone, she was able to give him a cryptic clue that she was in trouble. Eventually she gained her captor’s confidence to such an extent that he allowed her to leave with him when he left the flat.
At Luton Crown Court, Thomas pleaded guilty to the murder of Collette Magee, kidnapping the second woman and twice raping her. He also pleaded guilty to a further
offence of indecently assaulting her.
The offences happened just two months after Thomas had been released from a 16-year jail term for a string of sex offences. He had then gone to live in a hostel in Luton.
The Judge, Mr Justice Beatson, sentenced Thomas as follows:
The murder of Collette Magee – Life imprisonment.
Kidnapping the second victim – 8-years imprisonment.
Each of two rapes on the second victim – two sentences of life imprisonment.
Indecent assault on the second victim – five years imprisonment.
The Judge ordered that Thomas must serve a minimum of 16 years, as he
is ‘a high risk to the public’. We will probably never know what other serious
offences Thomas committed, prior to murdering Collette Magee, nor how
she must have suffered.
As you progress through this book, reading about these awful people who
are all-too-often set free too early, you may like to keep in mind that, in
reality, most criminals are really unlucky if they are arrested and convicted
‘first time out’. Many would have you believe that they have only committed
the actual offences for which they have just been convicted. However you
have also heard of the reality of the matter, through the high number of TIC
offences, which some criminals admit to. It would certainly be a more
perfect world as far as the police are concerned, if they could make an
arrest every single time a criminal committed yet another offence!
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Nicola Lowrie, her fiancé Richard Dyke, Laura Waghorn and her fiancé Nick
Barnes had celebrated Richard’s 20th birthday at his bedsit. Then a knock
at the door turned a fun-filled evening into a night of terror as the four were
subjected to horrific sex attacks by a knife maniac. The brave couples
reveal for the first time how their friendship has helped them to survive the
nightmare. Richard lowers his eyes as he recalls the run-up to the
nightmare: “We didn’t have much money so we planned a cheap night in.
We just chilled out, drank wine, ate nibbles and watched telly. Some time
after midnight we all hit the sack.”Then at 4am, someone banged violently
on the front door of Richard’s bedsit and was shouting. Still half asleep and
wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, Richard opened the door to find his
neighbour, Daniel Owen. Richard, a care worker, says: “His face was twisted
and he was screaming something about us keeping him awake. Suddenly, he
lunged towards me and tried to stab me with a knife he was holding. The
blade was five inches long with a razor-sharp edge.
I shouted for help but Owen pushed me back into the bedsit and slammed
me against a wall. He was a bouncer in a local pub and twice my size. But it
was like he was possessed. He seemed to have the strength of ten men.”
Laura and Nick were lying on the sofa and 35-year-old Owen looked
lustfully at Laura, who was wearing only bra and knickers. Laura says:
“There was an expression on his face which I can only describe as pure evil.
He was in a rage and a terrifying sight. He used his aggression and size to
dominate everyone in the room. We felt helpless.”
Owen ordered the men to lie face down on the floor. Then, in a cold voice,
he said, to Laura: “Take off your clothes.” The barmaid, 19, recalls: “I was
shaking with fear, but said ‘No’. He said, “Do it or I’ll kill the other two” I
knew he meant it. He raped me while my fiancé and my friend lay just four
feet away. I was numb with fear and shock”. Nick, 25, a factory worker, says:
“ Owen was terrifying. He seemed high on drugs and had a maniacal look
on his face. It was obvious he was looking for a reason to kill somebody. So
when he started touching Laura, although it sickened me and every part of
me wanted to scream ‘No’, I called to her gently and said, ‘Do what he
wants’. Laura was raped with a knife to her throat. He then turned to
Richard and forced him at knifepoint to commit a sex act on him. Richard
says: “He told me, ‘Do it now or you’re dead.’ His sinister black eyes told me
I had no choice.”
Owen then raped Laura once more, performed an unnatural sex act on
her and assaulted her with a bottle. She says: “It just went on and on. I
remember trying not to think about what he was doing to my body. I looked
towards Nick and mouthed, ‘I love you’. He mouthed, ‘I love you too.’ It
gave me a lot of strength. No matter how much pain Owen caused my body he would never be able to touch my thoughts.”
Then Owen brutalised Nicola, 20, an office administrator. She says: “I knew what was going to happen. He raped me, went back to rape Laura, then raped me again. As he
forced himself on me he whispered, ‘I’ve fancied you a long time’.” Richard says: “I could barely watch as that monster violated the woman I love. I wanted to go for him, to make him stop. But the knife was still pressed against Nicola’s throat. The moment I made a move towards him he’d have killed her.”
The beast was still not finished. He forced the men to watch the women they love suffer again. He made the girls touch each other and Richard perform a sex act on Laura, his friend’s partner, warning, “Do as I say. One of you, all of you, I don’t care how many I kill.”
By 6am the four friends were at breaking point. Laura was injured, both girls were in terrible pain and sobbing uncontrollably. Richard was traumatised and Nick, who’d been ordered to have sex with Richard, was in a near catatonic state of shock. The two friends were so traumatised they could not do what Owen wanted. But knowing they would die if they didn’t give into his perverted demands, they simulated having sex together. Then,
suddenly, Owen ordered them all to sit down. He paced around, telling them
his troubles almost as if they were friends. Nicola recalls: “He said his
marriage had broken up and he didn’t see enough of his kids. It felt like,
despite everything he’d just put us through, he wanted US to feel sorry for
HIM.”
Then the aggression flooded back. He threw Richard on the floor and pressed the knife between his shoulder blades. Nicola screamed: “Don’t kill him! Leave him alone, I beg you. I love him and want his children!”
Unbelievably, her plea seemed to work. Owen stormed onto the landing and yanked at the loft hatch to reveal a rope noose. Laura says: “We stumbled to the doorway and saw Owen put the noose around his neck. Then he climbed onto the banister.” Richard adds: “He couldn’t jump so I asked if he wanted help to get down. I didn’t want to save his life. I wanted him to pay for what he’d put us through. I kept thinking, ‘if he kills himself, he will have got away with it’.” Owen had demanded the four take the batteries from their mobile phones. Now he took Nicola’s car keys and fled. The friends looked at each other in disbelief. Nicola says: “We were thinking ‘is it finally over? Have we really got through all this alive?’.” Richard looked at his watch. It was 8.30am. Their ordeal had lasted more
than four hours. Then they spotted a mobile phone battery Owen had dropped. Richard dialled 999. Their horror was finally over. Nick says: “As a man, I felt I should have been able to protect the woman I love. But Owen was a maniac. If I had tried, we would probably all be dead.”
Owen was arrested the same day. On 17th May 2004 he was convicted of four charges of rape, four of false imprisonment and one of indecent assault. He was jailed for life and his name added to the sex offenders’ register. The court heard he had previous convictions for attempted rape, indecent assault and robbery following attacks on two prostitutes. But because he wasn’t on the register before, he was allowed to get his job as a bouncer.
The judge told Owen he was “The manifestation of pure evil.” Today, in July 2004, Laura still gets terrible nightmares and Richard and Nicola are on anti-depressants. Richard says: “It’s been difficult to resume a normal sex life. One of us would get a flashback of some horrible moment. But we just took things very slowly. Our love has healed so much. At Nick and Laura’s wedding Richard will be best man and Nicola a bridesmaid.
Richard and Nicola set a date for July 2005. Nicola says: “We went to hell and back but we refuse to let that monster turn us into victims for the rest of our lives.” Nick adds: “Owen did some terrible things that night that have left us all damaged and traumatised, but not defeated.”
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