bBen Wild successfully prosecuted a man (BR) who attempted to rape a lone, drunk woman as she was walking home from work in the early hours of the morning through St James’ Park in London.
Her friend overheard much of the ordeal as she had been on the phone to the victim during the walk. He had earlier asked the victim for a cigarette and made suggestive remarks, before she rebuffed him. BR walked away but then followed the victim through the park, dragged her to the floor, got on top of her, got between her legs and pinned her hands to the ground as she fought against him. However, three young soldiers (all of whom are due to be commended by the trial Judge for a Sheriff’s Award), also drunk, happened to be walking through the park, heard her screams and ran to help. They fought with and eventually subdued BR.
BR initially claimed he could not remember the incident due to head injury, and then later because he too was drunk. However, he then claimed that he had only been trying to rob the victim, and had only fought with the soldiers out of self-defence. He said he had not in fact done anything sexual to the victim (e.g. groping her, ripping her clothes etc). He adduced his previous convictions for thefts, and claimed the soldiers had used excessive force against him given his own injuries from the encounter.
The prosecution team made the difficult decision not to add attempted robbery to the indictment as it would undermine the Crown’s own case as to attempted rape. BR was convicted over a 5-day trial of attempted rape against the female victim and assault by beating of one of the soldiers.
Ben was instructed by Ed Cohen (Senior Crown Prosecutor) of the CPS London RASSO.
