Invisible

by Barbara Copperthwaite

  ‘I-I don’t remember anything after that until I heard my boyfriend’s voice calling me. Everything hurt, the lower part of my body… I shouted out and my boyfriend found me, called an ambulance and the police…’

  The poor woman had been raped, punched, and strangled. She was lucky to be alive. The whole attack can only have taken minutes because her boyfriend had found her just 15 minutes after she’d set off from the bar she’d been in. It’s incredible to think that she was so close to the man she loved, so close to colleagues and friends, and just seconds from a busy main road, while some beast had almost killed her. Even that felt like a plot from a programme though, rather than real life.

  ‘It was the smell of him,’ she continued as if someone had asked her, mouth curling in disgust. ‘That’s what stayed with me more than anything. A mix of fuel fumes and strong cheap aftershave… Then one day I walked past a bloke in Superdrug testing out some Links Africa; you know spraying it into the cap and sniffing it to see if he liked it. It took me right back…the terror…I was back there for an instant, thought he was coming for me… I knew then that that was what my attacker had been wearing. I curled up in the foetal position and yelped like a wounded puppy, too scared to even scream properly. That’s what he’s done to me. I’ll never be the same person again, she was stolen by that man and I wish I knew how to get her back… But I never will.’

  Tears dripped from her chin, but she didn’t let it show in her expression or her voice at all. Her baby face belied her strength. The Crown Prosecutor thanked her for her testimony, adding to the jury: ‘Please note that you will hear from all the victims that they noted the same smell from their attacker: that of fuel, or diesel, and Links Africa. The relevance of this will become clear later.’

  What did he mean by that? From Daryl’s expression he was as confused as me.

  ‘Please, tell us a little more about the impact the rape has had on your life,’ the barrister added gently.

  ‘Well, I can’t stand to be alone. I’m afraid of the dark and have to sleep with a light on. I’ve split up with my boyfriend because the thought of being…’ For the first time her voice faded away, but then it punched back as strong as ever. ‘…Of being sexual with him was too much. One day we were messing about, actually having a laugh for once, and he tickled me; I freaked out because I felt like I was being held down, confined, even though I wasn’t. That was the final straw. And I’ve moved back in with my parents; like I said, I can’t stand to be alone and they help me deal with my nightmares.’

  Then it was the defence’s turn to question her. I almost cheered. Yes, she’s been through a terrible ordeal, but nothing she’s said has made me think that it was my husband who did it.

  ‘Did you get a good look at your attacker?’ asked Daryl’s lawyer – good to see him finally earning his money.

  ‘No, I said, I didn’t take much notice of him. He was wearing a suit or some sort of smart outfit, and I wasn’t really looking at him. I think he was bald or balding…’

  ‘Balding? Well, that describes half the men in this room,’ said our QC, moving his arm expansively to illustrate. I looked round and nodded, and was pleased to see the jurors doing the same. ‘But surely when you were up close you managed to see his features properly.’

  She looked flustered. ‘No, no, he’d hit me, I’d almost passed out, and everything happened so quickly.’

  ‘So you couldn’t, for example, pick your attacker out if he were in this room?’ asked the barrister. ‘Can you see him in this room? Can you say with absolute certainty that he is here?’

  ‘I…the police said…’

  ‘Could you recognise your attacker?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t.’ She looked defiantly from the screen.

  ‘Thank you, that will be all.’

  One nil to us, I believe.

  It was only when the judge closed the session and I had to watch Daryl being led away by his guards that I realised that hours had passed. He twisted his head, craning over his shoulder to keep looking at me. Tears poured down my cheeks as he mouthed a simple message: ‘I love you.’ All I could do was nod back as despair washed over me and he disappeared from sight.

  Stiff and exhausted, I stretched my legs one by one, knees cracking as they changed position for the first time all day. Rolled my neck, pushed my shoulders back. Stood with a groan. A moment’s pause to pull my brittle façade around me, then I stepped out of court and back into the crowd again…

  Back at home, wiped out, I put the telly on to try and find something to block out my thoughts, to stop me going over and over what had been said today. The news flashed on. There I was, in glorious Technicolor, being pushed through the crowd, head down, face white, mouth grim. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  In the sea of people I spotted several brandishing placards that I hadn’t noticed at the time: Die Port Pervert, Rot in Hell, Justice for Julie. It was the last one that made my throat catch. Selfish, selfish cow that I am, I tend to concentrate so heavily on the miscarriage of justice going on, and how mine and Daryl’s lives have been ruined, and…well, I don’t think about those poor women much, especially Julie, the one who was murdered. Maybe I don’t want to, my mind dancing away from that because thinking about them makes them real and a part of my life and I don’t want that. Even hearing that victim today give her evidence made me feel very little. This is nothing to do with Daryl or me.

  Although it does make me furious for me, Daryl and the victims that the police have made such a monumental cock up of this investigation, because the monster who raped and killed is still out there somewhere.

  Tuesday 5

  The white noise of the crowd screaming hadn’t lessened because a day had passed; if anything it seemed fuller of fury than yesterday. It’s terrifying. I forced myself to take deep breaths to keep the panic at bay, and tried to let myself go with the surges of the mob as they pushed this way and that, rather than fight my way through, but it made no difference. I was grabbed, pinched, shoved as I stumbled across the pavement towards the court entrance, blinded by camera flashes, my police officer bodyguards almost as helpless as I.

  I only realised once I was in the building that someone had spat on me, the gobbet of saliva showing clearly against my black jacket lapel. I had to hurry to the loo to get rid of it before entering the courtroom, and dabbing at it made me feel sick. How could someone do that? I’ve done nothing wrong. Standing by your husband does not warrant that kind of response. You don’t see me spitting on police - and they’ve actually done something terrible to me!

  Once in the courtroom I sat in the same spot as yesterday – and had another look round for that woman who I thought looked like me and now I can’t decide. But there was no sign, so that’s that. Then the judge came in again, and it felt like I was reliving yesterday. Most of the women will apparently be giving evidence via television link like yesterday, too. Funny to think of them in a room just down the corridor, all alone, answering questions via a link when they’re almost within shouting distance.

  Anyway, another day, another poor woman describing being raped. This one happened in a district of Manchester….why this bloke is called the Port Pervert is beyond me, so far he’s been nowhere near a flipping port. Typical over-excited media making up silly names – the M25 rapist did attacks elsewhere too.

  This incident happened on 14 January; I certainly don’t remember anything particularly exciting about that date in all honesty, and although I feel for the women, I just want this bloody trial to be over and done so Daryl can come home and we can finally get our lives on track again.

  But once again the television screen came on, and Miss B appeared. She seemed more nervous than the previous witness, and as she talked she kept looking down into her lap as though it held some kind of escape.

  All the time below Miss B’s on-screen face the stenographer sat at her desk, fingers moved constantly, taking everything down. At first as Miss B talked I didn’t look at her, instea
d I found myself fascinated by those flying fingers that were recording the horror for posterity. Try as I might, I couldn’t block out the testimony though.

  Again, her attacker was wearing a suit. He’d come over to her and asked for directions as she’d walked home, past a nearby park, at 8pm-ish having just finished her shift in the supermarket she worked in.

  ‘It was freezing cold and I just wanted to get home, that’s all that was on my mind really,’ she said, her long blonde hair a curtain she hid behind as she gazed down. ‘I turned to point in the direction he needed to go, and suddenly his…his arm was around my neck…squeezing. He’d had his hands in his pockets before, but now I realised he was wearing those thin latex gloves, like doctors wear - I can’t be examined by doctors any more because their gloves are exactly like the ones he wore.

  ‘H-he was very calm as he wh-whispered in my ear to do exactly as he said and walk with him. He was sort of behind me, had me in a choke hold, I could feel my windpipe being crushed, could only take tiny little breaths. I was so scared, so scared.’

  As she grimaced I noticed her skin twisting oddly and realised she had a nasty scar across her right cheek that make up failed to hide.

  ‘We-we went into the park, and he pushed me to the ground behind some bushes. I begged him to take my mobile, my purse, anything he wanted. He just sh-shook his head and told me to look at him. I didn’t want to, thought if I got a good look at his face he might kill me. But he said it again so I looked up, straight into his cold blue eyes, as he told me: “If I wanted your stuff I’d have taken them by now. This is about me taking something else from whores like you.” Then he…then he…’

  Her shoulder shook with the tears that choked off her speech. The judge cleared his throat. ‘Would you like to take a break?’ he asked.

  She shook her head, wiping at her nose with the backs of her hands until she remembered the tissues she already clutched. Still talking to her lap, she managed to continue, voice quavering with the effort.

  ‘He told me to…’ Her hand made a gesture, trying to get us all to guess what her attacker’s orders had been because she couldn’t face saying the words. But the prosecution lawyer gently encouraged her to speak. ‘…He told me to give him oral sex, said if I did he might let me off.’ The last word was a choked squeak of despair as she disintegrated into sobs.

  A break was ordered and it was twenty minutes before we reconvened. I did feel for the poor woman, she was clearly traumatised. Despite more tears she managed to hold it together enough to finish her testimony – because, of course, her attacker hadn’t kept his word and ‘let her off’ once she’d done as he’d ordered. Instead he’d pinned her down and raped her, telling her he had a knife in his pocket and would kill her if she screamed.

  ‘He said it in such a reasonable voice, calm, like, cold,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t have any doubt that he meant what he said. So I l-let him rape me. I just wanted to live. I kept thinking about my kids, wondering if I’d ever see them again, while he was… But when he was done and took his condom off, instead of feeling better he seemed angry. He c-called me a whore and a…a cunt, and suddenly he started kicking me as I lay on the ground.

  ‘I tried to curl up in a ball to protect myself, put my arms round my head, and begged him to stop but he kept kicking me and kicking me. I felt something in my face crack, and my lungs hurt, I couldn’t breathe properly – I found out after that he’d fractured my skull and jaw, broken my cheekbone, and several of my ribs were snapped, my spleen had ruptured, and my bladder was damaged; I have to use a colostomy bag now.

  ‘He got on top of me again, I think he wanted to rape me again, but h-he couldn’t seem to. I could see it in his eyes then, that he was going to kill me. He was pulling something out of his briefcase or laptop carrier or whatever it was… I didn’t want to die there, like that; I didn’t want my kids to grow up without a mum. I-I kicked, screaming and screaming and just ran. I didn’t know what direction I ran, where I was going, how I did it, but I ran and ran and all the time expected to feel his hands on me again. Only I didn’t.’ She shook her head amazed.

  ‘I found myself on the street again, and literally ran into a couple. I only realised the state I must look when I saw their horrified faces. They called the emergency services, held me until help arrived. I was convinced my attacker was going to appear again, and even in hospital I was terrified. Doctors couldn’t believe I was still standing, let alone able to run from that man, not with the injuries I’d sustained. No one knows how I got away. I don’t. Someone up there was looking out for me that night.’

  I admit it; I wiped a tear from my own eye then. What she’d been through…I hadn’t been able to stop myself from imagining it as she’d spoken, wondering if I’d have had the strength to fight back and run for it.

  But then the prosecution asked her a question, and her answer made me hate her. ‘Do you see your attacker here today?’

  ‘Yes. He’s in the dock,’ she said.

  Wednesday 6

  I’m still reeling from that woman’s lie yesterday. I know, I know, it’s not really a lie as such; she’s said it because she’s confused, and after what she’s been through who can blame her. She’s just imagining that Daryl is her attacker because he happens to be right there in front of her, and because people are telling her that he is. Can’t she see that by saying that though she’s actually allowing the real criminal to get away? Poor Daryl had looked absolutely poleaxed when Miss B said she recognised him as her rapist; it was the last thing he’d expected to happen.

  Obviously Daryl’s lawyer made mincemeat of her this morning during cross-examination, pointing out that when you’re in a high-adrenaline situation such as she was that it’s hard to recall exact details. I thought it was particularly clever when he asked her what colour her rescuer’s coat was and she said blue but actually it was green. He even implied that she’d made up the bit where she’d seen her rapist properly, because why would he let her see his face yet wear gloves and a condom to protect against leaving fingerprints and DNA evidence?

  So ultimately I don’t think the jury were swayed by her pointing out Daryl – she’s clearly unreliable, and now I’ve calmed down I do feel sorry for her.

  Once she left the stand, victim number three was called: the imaginatively-named Mrs C. Finally an attack that happened in a port; although is Tilbury Docks technically a port? I don’t know…and I can’t believe that even during all this drama random thoughts like that still pop into my head. I’m tired though. I don’t want to listen to any more horrifying testimony; I’ve heard more disturbing things in the last few days than most people hear in a lifetime.

  This isn’t me, I don’t know how I got here; one day I woke up in someone else’s life, and I’m sick of the drama, sick of being pushed around and spat on and jeered at and glared at and screeched at and people setting fire to me or sending me threats and poo – I’m really sick of the poo - and I feel like I’ve held it together, just about, by the skin of my teeth for so long, but I’m not sure I can go on another second longer. I want my life back!

  Sadly, falling apart isn’t a viable option though. I’ve just got to keep going for a little bit longer. Just a little bit longer. Then everything will be okay again. But today, in court, I just wanted to sit with my eyes screwed shut and my fingers in my ears, singing ‘la la la, not listening!’ Actually, I didn’t even want to go to court, but knew that would look terrible, so I dragged myself there and tried to look like I was listening while actually desperately trying to block everything out. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at Daryl in case my despair leeched through to him. I have to stay strong for him.

  Can you think of anything more depressing than hearing a woman talk about her 30-minute rape ordeal at the docks at 12.30am on 3 February though? This bloke didn’t even just rape, he bound her with duct tape first so that she was helpless to stop him as he…well, he…you know what, I don’t need to write that down, it’s seared
in my memory already.

  He was clever enough to make sure he wore the latex gloves and condom again though, bastard. Dressed in his smart suit, he must have looked trustworthy, but he sounds like an utter monster, and seems to have totally got off on the power trip, telling her: ‘Listen, whore, I’m not going to lie, this is going to be very bad. But if you behave, you’ll be fine. If you’re a stupid cunt and don’t behave…well, you know what the consequences will be, don’t you?’

  I don’t want to know any of this stuff. I want to wipe my brain clean.

  I’m going to bed. I’ll think about that night, 3 February, when Daryl called me in the small hours and was in such a lovely, jolly mood, and really wanted to talk to me, bless him. I’m going to pretend that I’m back there, at that moment, and we’re both happy and carefree. And I’m going to eat half a ton of chocolate, have a large whiskey, then, please God, go to sleep.

  Thursday 7

  The thought of going back to that courtroom again makes me feel physically ill. Since finally getting home tonight, I’ve spent most of my time kneeling on the floor, virtually hugging the toilet bowl. That’s where I’m writing, right now, in a bid to sort out my utterly messed up head.

  The day started (and ended) with the usual vitriol pointed at me; screaming, pushing, photograph-taking fun. Then the television was once more put on and Mrs D, yet another blonde (this time the kind of dirty blonde that occurs when natural blondes get a bit older and the brightness of their hair fades away) gave her evidence about her 2 March attack in Tilbury.

  As she described her rape in eye-watering detail that made me wince, I glanced over to Daryl. Having been so utterly rubbish yesterday, I wanted to let him know I was there for him one hundred per cent, and I was worried that he’d be as upset as me at hearing what this woman had been through, at what he was accused of doing.