Lawyer tells of rape by masked intruder
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Your support makes all the difference.A LAWYER was subjected to a brutal rape by a masked intruder, an Old Bailey jury was told yesterday. The woman, in her thirties, described how the intruder, wearing a balaclava and wielding a crowbar, burst into her home as she was watching television. 'I was . . . petrified,' she said.
The court was told she co-operated with her attacker because she feared she would be killed if she refused.
Nicholas Lorraine-Smith, for the prosecution, said the alleged rapist, Joshua Baptiste, 31, was arrested after making his escape by jumping out of her first-floor window and breaking his ankle.
Mr Baptiste, of no fixed address, denies rape, indecent assault and aggravated burglary on 16 April this year, but has admitted burglary.
The woman told the court that throughout the attack she pleaded with her attacker not to hurt her. She said Mr Baptiste led her into a spare bedroom and pushed her onto the bed where he raped her.
Mr Baptiste then ordered her to remove her rings and took a gold chain, before pushing her into her bedroom and forcing her to perform sex acts, it was alleged.
Suddenly he ran to the window and fled, throwing himself through the window of the spare bedroom. Mr Lorraine-Smith told the court that the woman's neighbours had telephoned the police after hearing her whimpering.
DNA genetic fingerprinting showed that there was a one in 10 million chance that Mr Baptiste was not the man who had had sex with her, it was alleged.
The trial continues today.
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