A fishmonger who dragged an office worker down a r

A fishmonger who dragged an office worker down a railway embankment and raped her was jailed for six years at the Old Bailey today after an Old Bailey jury convicted him on ‘billion to one’ DNA evidence.

Brian Wood, 35, a motorbike enthusiast, was damned by the stunning odds following recent advances in the science.

When Wood was first arrested in April last year – more than three years after the 1996 attack – forensic scientists initially concluded that the chance of another man being responsible was one in 29 million.

But improvements in the science over recent months, using a technique known as ‘SGM+ profiling’ mean that the odds of Wood not being the guilty man now stand at one in a billion.

Wood, who has a Hell’s Angel style beard, had not denied that the rape took place but he contended simply that someone else did it – despite the overwhelming odds.

But confronted with the apparently watertight evidence a jury last month had failed to reach a verdict against Wood and a retrial was ordered.

Today (wed) a second jury convicted Wood, of rape.

Sentencing him to six years, Judge John Rogers, QC, told him: ‘For what it’s worth I, like the jury, have absolutely no doubt about your guilt.

‘This is one occasion where a man’s past, thanks to the modern methods of keeping records, eventually catches up with him long after the event.

‘

Wood, of Great Western Road, Notting Hill, was also ordered to register as a sex offender indefinitely.

Mr John Blair-Gould, prosecuting, had told the court that what happened, at about 7am on January 14, 1996, could be described as ‘every woman’s worst nightmare.

‘She was grabbed from behind around the neck by a complete stranger, dragged down a nearby disused railway embankment and raped.

‘

The 35-year-old victim, from East Finchley, told the jury that, having finished a night shift, she was walking towards Crouch End, when she could sense someone jogging behind her.

‘I didn’t think anything at first so I carried on walking and the next thing I knew this person had his arm around my neck.

Even then I wasn’t sure what to think.

I kept still.

‘He said he wanted my money.

I said I would give him my money.

He started to struggle and I struggled.

‘

The next the brunette knew she was being frogmarched down a path alongside a disused railway track.

‘It was muddy so I couldn’t keep my balance.

We ended up under a bridge.

There was a very dim sulphur light under the bridge.

Because I was struggling he was panicking.

‘I think I was aggravating him more.

He kept telling me not to struggle and not to panic or he would hit me and it would be worse for me.

He made it clear that he wanted to have sex with me.

‘

Then she said her coat or top was forced up over her face so she could not see the attacker as he raped her.

‘Afterwards he started talking to me as you would having a normal chat.

He asked me how many children I had.

He asked me how I was getting home and if he could walk down with me.

He said that he was sorry and asked me if I was OK.

‘He said he had been to a party and he had taken something like Es (ecstasy tablets).

He smelt of cigarettes and alcohol.

‘

She said then he just ran off out of sight and eventually she found a telephone box to call for police assistance.

ends