woke in her bed to find a stranger on top of her.

My ordeal at hands of rapist

By ABIGAIL GRANT
JUNE 27, 2007

IN 1993, Abigail Grant, then 28, woke in her bed to find a stranger on top of her.

It would take 12 years for the police to identify and arrest her attacker. Here, journalist Abigail tells CAROLINE PALMER about the horror of her attack in North London and why she feels the legal system lets down victims.

With only one in 20 reports of rape leading to conviction, Sun Woman has started a Stop Rape Now campaign calling for a 24-hour victims’ helpline, better funding for support groups, and more specially trained police officers, CPS barristers and Sexual Assault Referral Centres.

I WAS awakened with a start. I realised the duvet had been pulled off and a man was on top of me.

He was trying to force my legs open with his legs. I was, for about 15 seconds, paralysed with fear.

He jabbed his tongue in my mouth and I could taste cigarettes. He grabbed my left breast through my T-shirt and began violently twisting it.

He threatened to kill me if I didn’t keep quiet and he began punching me in the face. Pushing his chest with my right hand, I punched his face wildly with my left. I thought I was going to be killed.

Then I thought: “Let him get on with it and live” (advice bandied around at that time). So I stopped struggling and lay still. But as he parted my legs I thought a very simple thought: “I don’t want to be raped.”

So when he put his tongue in my mouth, I bit it hard.

He yelped and lurched backwards. I then went for his penis. I squeezed, twisted and dug my nails in, and he went berserk.

I can’t remember being hit — all I was thinking was: “I’m not letting go.”

At some point he tired of hitting me or maybe the pain got too great. I saw another chance and hauled myself up into a sitting position. Then I head-butted him. I recoiled, momentarily concussed. And when I came to, he was gone.

I ran to the front door, to escape, but it was locked. I remembered I’d dropped the keys next to the kettle in the kitchen when I’d made tea. I was trapped and still had no idea where he was.

I dialled 999 but the wire had been cut. I looked down and there, laid out neatly on the floor, in descending order of size, were the knives from the knife block.

The window was open. He’d left the same way that he came in. I shut it and grabbed my keys. I was shaking as I hauled on clothes. Then I ran upstairs to my friend and landlady Peri. I pounded so hard on her door that I left marks in the wood.

Fifteen minutes later police arrived and I was driven to the station. The sergeant said: “Oh, your nose is broken,” matter-of-factly and clicked it back into place.

The police doctor scraped and prodded me, then took a blood sample for an Aids test. Two policewomen asked me what had happened. Peri brought fresh clothes and what I was wearing was put into brown paper bags.

The next few days were a blizzard of statements and visits to hospital (I lost ten per cent of my vision in my right eye).

Seven months on, the forensic evidence made it to the front of the queue, after which I was told that, whoever my attacker was, he was “not known to the police”.

But 12 YEARS LATER DC Andy Lawrence from the Cold Case Squad and DC Donna Mitchell from the Sapphire Unit arrived at my door and said: “Do you know a Greig Strachan? We think we’ve got him.”

The Government had set up the Sapphire Unit to boost rape convictions.

All unsolved stranger assaults were being reopened and, having run the old evidence from my case through their new machines, they’d found a fingerprint match.

I’d forgotten how much I hated this man. Because of him, I’d lost everything — home, relationship, agent, money, career, even my dog. At one stage I was referred to a mental health unit as a suicide risk. I don’t remember wanting to kill myself. I do remember wanting the pain to stop.

On the day Strachan (an ambulance controller, then 30, of Stoke Newington, North London) was arrested it was too early for a drink so I went to the fridge and grabbed a pot of raspberry jelly.

Although it was a cold day, I put on a coat, stood on the balcony and ate it. Because I could go outside and he couldn’t.

t soon became apparent the case was not simple. It was definitely his fingerprint but you can’t date fingerprints. You can prove they were left but not when.

I even had to sign a statement declaring I’d shut the front door before running up to Peri’s so he couldn’t claim to have slipped in during the 15 minutes between the attack and the police arriving.

Four trial dates were cancelled and my life was spent waiting. Then finally, on February 14, last year, I was driven to Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London, for my court appearance. Strachan was in the dock so I opted for a screen to hide me as I testified.

After taking my oath, I felt dizzy and asked for water. A clerk appeared with a cup and those were the last few seconds when I felt I had a say in the proceedings.

Strachan’s barrister started off softly: “I see you kept your wallet in the kitchen.” I said ‘yes’, which was and wasn’t true — I’d dropped it next to the kettle on the night of the attack but I didn’t always keep it there.

But saying ‘yes’ allowed her to launch into questions about pizza delivery men: “In the six years I’d lived in my flat, did I ever ask pizza-delivery men into the kitchen to pay them?” I’d twigged she was trying to place this man in my bedroom consensually, but I didn’t know how long I was expected to answer dumb questions without reacting.

After similar ones about gas, electricity and postmen, she started on men in pubs: “Did you ever talk to men in pubs?” “I’ve no idea, I must have.” Then: “Surely in all your conversations, you must have had one so fascinating you said, ‘Let’s finish this at my place’?” “No.” “Really?” “No.” “Never?” “No.” The barrister then moved on to my flatmate, asking if I knew her “male acquaintances” and any other men she may have “brought home”.

I was finally released from court. Donna said I’d done well, my friends said they were proud and I was furious but relieved. Thank God it was over, I thought. If only.

The next day Donna arrived at my door. Earlier that day the defence had introduced a piece of information they weren’t allowed to but which left the judge no option but to dismiss the jury. There was to be a re-trial. For the first time since it all began, I burst into tears. When four new trial dates were cancelled I fell into a slump. Then the next trial date held.

In the first trial, the defence barrister had avoided grisly questions but this one had no qualms. “How many times,” he asked, “did your attacker stick his tongue into your mouth? How deep? Did you bite him hard?”

He said: “If you bit him that hard there must have been blood”, and he asked me where it went. I said: “Probably down my throat, which is why I needed an Aids test.”

Some days later, Donna phoned. The prosecution had finished and I could now be told what the police had known from the start — Strachan was a convicted rapist.

I was overjoyed — he was going down. Donna counselled caution, though. All the defence had to do was convince three jurors of reasonable doubt and he’d walk. But then, 13 years after the attack, 14 months after the police arrived at my door, it had taken a jury of 12 men and women less than 20 minutes to unanimously find Strachan (then 43) guilty of attempted rape. I bounced round the flat delirious that it was over. Over.

But the first and second sentencing dates were cancelled. When the third was, too, I noticed even the police were embarrassed.

Then, finally, we had another date — September 18, last year — and it held. Andy asked me to write a letter to the judge, describing how Strachan pleading not guilty and forcing a trial had affected me.

In court. Andy took my letter to the judge. I wanted it to be over. But from the moment the defence barrister opened his mouth I knew it wasn’t going to happen — a report was late or something.

The judge granted a delay, saying that because I’d waited 13 years for justice, he was sure I wouldn’t mind waiting another 28 days or so. But in my letter I’d said the last 18 months had seen my income halved, I was back on anti-depressants, had started smoking and hadn’t had a holiday in two years. I was staggered.

When a new sentencing date was set for six weeks’ time, I wasn’t sure I would go. But I did. This time the defence barrister argued that, as Strachan had received only six years for a previous rape and two years for a sexual assault on an 11-year-old girl (which ran concurrently), the judge couldn’t possibly give him more here — as his attack on me was “not as ghastly as it might be”.

But the judge said the “dreadful crime” warranted 11 years. Outside, it became clear that was a terrific result. I felt tired but vindicated. But outside Andy said: “He’ll appeal. They always do.” He hasn’t yet.

Having come to the end of my torturous journey, I can say the police were perfect, the fingerprints team flawless — and the judge did his job.

But now I’ve been through the system, when I look at that one-in-20 statistic I’m not appalled, I’m amazed. Wow, that high?