The Whole Truth by Hunter, Cara (best books to read for women .TXT) 📕

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[THEME SONG – AARON NEVILLE COVER VERSION OF ‘I SHALL BE RELEASED’]

[JOCELYN]

I’m Jocelyn Naismith, and I’m the co-founder of The Whole Truth, a not-for-profit organization that campaigns to overturn miscarriages of justice. This is Righting the Wrongs, series 3: The Roadside Rapist Redeemed?

Chapter four: Plaster

You might be thinking ‘Plaster’ is an odd title for this episode. But as far as Gavin Parrie is concerned, it’s only too horribly relevant.

Before we go any further I should warn you that this episode includes details some listeners may find distressing.

We heard in the last episode how the Roadside Rapist’s third victim, Alexandra Sheldon, went on to marry one of the lead detectives in the case, DS – now DI – Adam Fawley. In our view, this is perhaps the single most important factor to be considered when assessing Gavin Parrie’s alleged guilt.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again. First of all, we need to retrace our steps a little.

On the evening of 16th October 1998, Louise Gilchrist was on her way home from her job at a doctor’s surgery in Cutteslowe when she was dragged into undergrowth and brutally raped. And barely a month later, the fifth victim, a 19-year-old trainee midwife, was attacked on her way home from the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, sustaining horrendous injuries.

The time between the attacks was getting smaller, and the violence was getting worse. The Roadside Rapist was escalating.

[ALISON DONNELLY]

‘I mean, I’d heard about the Roadside Rapist – everyone had. But that was in Oxford. Abingdon was miles away. No one thought it could happen to us.’

[JOCELYN]

That’s Alison Donnelly. She’s the only one of the surviving victims who’s been prepared to talk in public about her ordeal. She was only 21 at the time.

[ALISON]

‘I was walking home down Larborough Drive, just a few doors away from my flat. It’d been raining all afternoon so the gutters were overflowing, and when I stopped to cross the road a big truck came past really close and sprayed water all over me. I guess I was distracted for a minute. That’s when it happened.’

[JOCELYN]

Alison never heard the man coming up behind her. The man who thrust a plastic bag over her head and dragged her off the street into the undergrowth.

[ALISON]

‘I was trying to struggle but I couldn’t see – the plastic was sticking to my face. Then I felt him dragging me through the bushes and bundling me into the back of a van. There was plasticky stuff on the floor. I’ve never been so terrified in my whole life. I thought he was going to kill me.’

[JOCELYN]

We know now that the attacker drove Alison more than ten miles to a car park on the Oxford ring road.

[ALISON]

‘He dragged me out of the van and across some asphalt – I could feel it under my feet. Then he threw me down on my back and tore off my underwear and raped me. Then I felt him pull away and stand up and then his footsteps walking away. I just lay there, holding my breath, praying he wouldn’t come back.’

[JOCELYN]

But those prayers were not going to be answered.

[ALISON]

‘A few minutes later I heard footsteps again, coming closer, and then he was grabbing me and throwing me over on to my face. It was so painful – I’d never had sex that way before. He seemed different now – rougher. Crueller. He must have known how much he was hurting me but he didn’t care. I thought he was punishing me for it being over so fast before. He had his hand on the back of my neck, pushing me into the ground, and I couldn’t breathe, but when I tried to struggle he started to beat my head against the concrete. And this time, it wasn’t over quickly.’

[JOCELYN]

Alison suffered a fractured skull and lost the sight in one eye. Her injuries were horrific.

[ALISON]

‘I must have blacked out at some point because when I came to there were flashing lights and police and an ambulance.’

[JOCELYN]

Alison was rushed to the JR hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery. It would be five weeks before she was well enough to go home, and she faced months of rehabilitation. Meanwhile, and for the first time, Thames Valley had a lucky break. There was something embedded in the soles of Alison’s shoes, which could only have come from the back of the van.

It was a substance called calcium sulphate. Plaster dust. It was the police’s first real clue. And it would prove to be critical.

Nor was that the only development in the case. One of Alison’s flatmates remembered seeing a white van parked down their street several times in the days before the attack. It was the first indication that DS Adam Fawley’s theory was right: the rapist really could be stalking his victims.

It was important progress, but it didn’t come in time to save Lucy Henderson, who was to be his seventh and last victim. On 12th December, she was attacked on her way home from work, bundled into a van and driven to an abandoned industrial site where she was savagely raped. Once again, plaster dust was found on her shoes.

[ALISON]

‘After what happened to Lucy the police asked me if I’d do a reconstruction so they could put it on Crimewatch, and I said yes, because I wanted to do everything I could to help. But it was horrible – like reliving the whole thing all over again.’

[JOCELYN]

As the judge in the trial was later to say, Alison showed extraordinary courage and resilience in the face of such a horrendous attack. And now, twenty years later, she’s found a new vocation as a counsellor, helping other victims of sexual assault. So something positive did eventually come out of her terrible ordeal.

But, tragically, the same would not be the case for all the Roadside Rapist’s victims.

On Christmas Eve 1998, Jennifer Goddard, the mother of his fifth victim, got home to find her