A 65-year-old rape victim came face-to-face with h

A 65-year-old rape victim came face-to-face with her
alleged attacker today (Monday) when an Old Bailey judge asked
her to step from behind a screen and look at the defendant.

The well-spoken woman wrapped a large scarf around her
head and put on dark sunglasses to protect her identity before
coming out from behind the courtroom screen.

‘I’ll do it if I have to,’ she said in answer to a
request by defence counsel.

After staring for a few seconds at 43-year-old Hugh
McCartney in the dock, the woman said: ‘To the best of my
belief that is the man.

‘
McCartney, unemployed, of Endsleigh Street, Bloomsbury,
central London, denies shinning a drainpipe to break into the
woman’s room and raping her at knifepoint in the early hours
of July 23, 1992.

The jury heard that there was no dispute that the woman
suffered a terrifying and degrading rape attack.

The issue was whether McCartney was the attacker or
whether the real rapist was still on the lose.

Silence fell on the courtroom as the arthritic woman –
using two crutches – clambered into the witness box to recall
her nightmare ordeal.

The retired woman came down to London in July last year
to attend a 10-week fine arts course at the Slade School of Art in
Bloomsbury.

She booked into student dormitory-style accommodation in
Endsleigh Street, Bloomsbury.

Her room had French windows facing directly opposite
McCartney’s home also in Endsleigh Street.

About 6 pm on July 22, 1992, she returned home to her room,
fixed herself some dinner and eventually went to bed about 10 pm,
the jury heard.

‘In the small hours about four-ish I was disturbed by
someone in my room,’ she told the jury.

‘The room was dark but it was sufficiently light for me
to see that whoever it was was wearing a balacLava mask.

‘I thought to myself what is the IRA doing in my room.

‘
The attacker fixed his eyes on his victim and slowly came
closer.

‘He said ‘Shut up you f.

.

.

.

.

.

bitch – this is a knife’,’
she said.

‘I realised there was a knife and I somehow managed to
grab it and hold it away from my throat as I screwed myself up
into a ball face down on the bed.

‘
The terrified woman tried to scream but could not because
the rapist pressed his hand over her mouth.

‘He told me to turn over,’ she said.

‘I asked him if he wanted money and he said, ‘I can find
the money myself.

I’ll slit your throat, just like a fish’.

‘
Fearing she would be murdered if she resisted him, the
woman decided to calm herself down and try and negotiate a survival
deal.

‘I managed to make my voice very calm,’ she said.

‘I said to him, ‘Listen to me.

My voice is very calm.

If
you promise not to hurt me I will co-operate.

‘I was very anxious to survive.

‘I thought this was the only way for it.

‘
Her tactics seemed to work and ‘things quietened down’,
she said.

‘Then there was a moment of great danger when he got me
by the throat in a left arm hook so that I was being throttled.

‘Because I didn’t resist he tied my hands behind my back
with a piece of rope.

‘I said, ‘Please don’t tie my hands too tightly because
I have got arthritis in my thumbs and they hurt.

‘
The woman said the rapist seemed to obey her and kept
the rope relatively loose.

Finally, the attacker pulled out a blindfold and tried
to cover her eyes.

‘Please don’t blindfold me,’ she begged.

‘I’ll promise to keep my eyes closed.

‘
Showing some kind of sympathy, he agreed not to use
the blindfold.

She stuck to her promise and kept her eyes
closed throughout the rape.

However, her eyes were ‘inadvertently’ opened
occasionally during the attack long enough for her to catch
a glimpse of him.

Stripped naked and hunched up on the bed, the woman
saw her attacker’s silhouette by the window.

‘He took his clothes off and removed his mask,’ she said.

He slowly moved to the bed, grabbed the woman and raped
her.

‘I was not hurt beyond the rape but I was treated roughly,’
she said.

Although she kept her eyes closed for most of the assault,
she did see his shoulders which were covered in freckles.

The woman was forced to perform an indecent sex act before
being raped a second time.

‘He asked me what I liked to wear and I said jeans or
something like that,’ she said.

‘He said he preferred women in suspenders because they
were kinky.

‘He also said he would like to take me out for a meal.

‘
The attacker eventually fell asleep beside the woman in
the single bed.

Too terrified to move in case he used the knife on her,
she lay frozen next to her attacker.

About 6.

30 am, he awoke and eventually dressed and left
the room through the door into the public hallway.

The woman went to the window and watched him cross the
street and disappear in the distance.

She immediately reported her ordeal to other residents
and police were alerted.

She described the man as five foot seven or eight inches
tall, bald on top with short sandy-coloured hair on the sides
of his head, clean shaven and with a stocky, muscular build.

He had a hook nose, she said, and deep-set eyes.

He spoke with quite a strong Cockney accent.

New Scotland Yard detectives managed to produce a computer
image of her assailant from her description and it was shown on
an ITV crime show in September, 1992.

A member of the public watching the television report
recognised the computer image and contacted police.

McCartney was arrested in September, 1992, and allegedly
partly confessed to the attack.

‘It could have been me but I don’t remember because I was
drunk,’ he told police.

‘I frightened the old lady.

I guess it will take a long time
for her to get over it if she ever does.

‘I’ve been drunk before but I’ve never done anything like
this before.

‘
Prosecutor Miss Alison Barker said there was a crucial comment
made by the rapist during the attack which identified McCartney as
the rapist.

The man told the woman he had just made pds stlng 200 by
selling two statues, one of which was a Santa Claus, that day.

McCartney, a labourer at a local hospital, had that day
been ordered to clear out a storeroom basement at the hospital
and sell the two statues, one of which was a marble form of
Saint Nicholas, the jury heard.

McCartney’s share of the sale was pds stlng 200.

McCartney denies rape on July 23, 1992.

The trial continues.

ends