| Woman fears her freed rapist will attack again By Frances Gibb, Legal Editor, The Times, 31 July 2003 A WOMAN who brought the first private prosecution for rape has appealed to the police for protection because she fears the rapist, who is about to be freed, has been following her movements. She says she is terrified that Christopher Davies, a chef from Margate, who is due to be released on licence today or tomorrow, will track her down and attack her again. The woman’s plea for police protection highlights the dilemmas faced by rape victims when their attackers are freed. She said she felt in danger because she had personally brought the prosecution. She had expressed those fears to police but they in turn had asked her what steps she was taking to protect herself. The police often cannot act unless a man actually threatens or assaults a woman again. She could apply for an injunction or exclusion order to stop him coming near her but that would alert him to her address. “I’m obviously not prepared to do that,” she said. Although he would be required to sign on the sex offenders register within three days of arriving at a particular place, there is a loophole excluding people with no fixed abode. The case made legal history in 1995 when two prostitutes, one of them the woman concerned, succeeded in prosecuting Davies, then 44, after the Crown Prosecution Service discontinued proceedings. They were supported by Women Against Rape and the English Collective of Prostitutes, while their solicitors and counsel worked without charge. Davies was sentenced to 14 years, reduced on appeal to 11 years, and has now served the requisite seven years to qualify for release on licence. He has already had his parole revoked once after failing to report back to a hostel. The woman, who gave up prostitution after the attack, says that on three occasions while on parole he appeared to move in order to be near where she was then living. “First he came to the area in the South of England where I was. So I decided to go abroad for a while with my partner and child, and he was found to have caught a ferry to Europe. Then I returned and again he also came back, and that time was arrested at Dover and put back inside for another year. It does seem too much to be a coincidence.” She said that women would be deterred from reporting rape if they were not adequately protected when their attackers were released. Nicky Adams, from the pressure group Women Against Rape [Times mistake, Ms Adams is from the English Collective of Prostitutes], said: “It is difficult enough for women to sustain a complaint through to conviction. The police must ensure they are properly protected if they do.” Ruth Hall, also from the group, said: “Protection in these cases should be standard; that is, after all, what the police are supposed to do and what we pay for.” There needed to be a national computerised system detailing all complaints of domestic violence. “Too often women have to start all over again and tell a new officer what has happened.” A second problem was that even if a women were being threatened and terrified, the police often said they could not act until she was actually assaulted, Ms Hall said. The same concerns were highlighted in a report last week from the Fawcett Society, the campaigning group for equality for women, which found that despite a 27 per cent rise in the past year in recorded cases of rape, the conviction rate had fallen to 5.4 per cent. The first findings of its Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System found a “postcode lottery” in the treatment of rape victims, with “excellent” treatment at the seven new sexual assault referral centres set up in cities across England and Wales, but often poor treatment elsewhere. Vera Baird, QC, Labour MP for Redcar and chairman of the commission, condemned the conviction rate as unacceptably low. She called for specialist centres to be set up in all parts of the country, backed by a 24-hour helpline; trained pollice officers and prosecutors to deal with all victims of rape and domestic violence; and only specialist prosecutors to handle rape cases. Kent Police said that no officer at Margate had any recollection of suggesting that the woman should take steps to protect herself. He added that her concerns were being treated with the utmost seriousness. |