Woman who was raped 40 years ago stages reconstruction in bid to catch attacker
A woman who was raped at knifepoint 40 years ago has reconstructed the attack in a bid to catch her assailant.
Liz, not her real name, was a 20-year-old law student studying at Warwick University back in 1984 when she was raped on January 9. As she walked to the library she was grabbed from behind and had a knife held to her throat. The man holding it told her he would kill her if she screamed.
He then forced her through a gate and onto a football pitch, marching her to the far end where it was pitch black. The man had grabbed her ponytail and the blade nicked her neck as they walked in the Canley area of Coventry. Liz was then forced to the ground, partially undressed and raped in the vile attack.
The man then told her not to move and she lay, paralysed with fear, for around five minutes before she looked around and realised the man had gone. Liz ran back to the path where she told a passing student what had happened and he took her to a nearby house where the occupants raised the alarm.
Her rapist has never been caught since the terrifying attack. But after watching the BBC series ‘Forensics – The Real CSI’ last year which was filmed with West Midlands Police, it prompted her to contact the force again to see if advances in DNA technology might identify her attacker
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She knew that several samples had been taken nearly 40 years before, still too early for DNA testing at that time. And although paperwork could no longer be traced, the samples still existed in the forensic archives.
As a result, Liz agreed to stage a reconstruction on the 40th anniversary of her ordeal in the hope it may help catch the perpetrator. Although the university campus has changed and the football pitch is no longer there, she walked the route she had taken four decades before.
The woman was raped 40 years ago but her attacker never faced justice (West Midlands Police / SWNS)She said: "I would like to feel that effort has been made to find him. I would like him to feel scared because he frightened me for a long time. I want him found, I want justice.
"Whether or not they find him and he goes to prison what I would really like deep inside is for him to be walking along the road one day and for somebody to be behind him who is bigger than him and stronger than him and that has malice in his thoughts and for him to know that. For him to feel a little bit of the fear that I felt that day."
Liz never saw her attacker’s face but thought he may have been in his 20s. He had no discernible accent and from something he said, she felt he may have done this before. She added: "It changed me completely, it was very scary. It was a week before I could write again because my hand would just wobble. Some weeks I was too frightened to walk a few yards in the dark from one part of the university campus to the other.
A newspaper headline at the time after Liz's horrific attack (West Midlands Police)"Even if someone unfamiliar came up behind me I would just freak out. Emotionally you are all over the place someone has violated you in an intimate and horrific way. They have no right to do that."
Detectives are now submitting the samples they have for DNA testing in the hope that a match can be found in today’s database. Detective Inspector Rachel Gregory, from West Midlands Police's Public Protection Unit, said: "These types of offences have really far-reaching implications and devastating consequences for people and their wider families, and they are worthy of our full attention.
"A rapist is a rapist and they need to know that they will be pursued - lawfully but relentlessly - by West Midlands Police."
Anyone with information is urged to contact the force via Live Chat or by calling 101 quoting crime reference 20/246855/23. Alternatively contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
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