The Whole Truth

‘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.