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From out of the...shadows

A happy night out, a petty row - and a walk home that changed the next 25 years...


Published by: Jean Jollands
Published on: 14 February 2013

Collapsing into the armchair, I let out a deep sigh. I was shattered!
‘You could help a bit more with the kids,'
I snapped at my hubby Frank. He was sat staring at the TV. ‘You can see I'm struggling!'
‘Stop getting at me,' he huffed. ‘I'm doing the best I can...' As he stormed out of the living room, tears trickled down my cheeks. All we seemed to do these days was argue. If it wasn't one thing, it was something else.
If I was completely truthful with myself though, I'd have acknowledged the fact that something else had been eating away at us for some time. You see, eight years earlier, another man had forced his way into my life. It was July 5, 1987, to be precise, that my world had been torn apart. I was just 22 and Frank was 19. After two years of dating, we were engaged and very much in love. But after going clubbing with friends one night, we'd got into a silly argument on the way home.
‘How can you have no money left?!' I'd snapped at him. ‘We only need 10p for the phone box to call a taxi home.'
Then I'd stormed off into the darkness. Ten minutes later though, I was relieved to see a car pull up beside me.
‘So he's found the money after all,' I mumbled, assuming it was Frank in a taxi.
But then the passenger door had flung open. There were hurried footsteps... ‘Frank?!' I gasped. Before I could process what was happening, I felt a hand grab my throat. Then the cold blade of a knife pressed against my cheek.
‘Get in the car,' the unfamiliar voice growled, hauling me into the passenger seat. ‘Don't look at my face!'
Heart thumping fast, I tried screaming, but all that came out was a tiny, terrified croak. His voice sounded like he was in his 20s, his accent local.
As the man drove off, one hand was on the steering wheel while the other pushed my head down to my knees. I couldn't see him. This is it. He's going to kill me. I thought of Frank, my family...afraid I'd never see them again.
Moments later, I felt the car drive up a ramp. There was an echo of the tyres, so I guessed we'd driven into a car park and come to a halt.
‘P-please....' I begged, my voice shaking.
‘Don't look at me,' my attacker growled again, ripping off my underwear. His weight crushed me and his breath was stale on my face as he straddled, then raped me.
Desperately trying to shut out what was happening, I knew I had to let him do what he wanted. That was the only way he might let me live. After he'd got his sick kicks, he drove off with me again, before parking up and raping me once more.
‘Where do you want to be dropped off?' he blurted out afterwards. ‘The hospital,' I mumbled, shell-shocked. It was only a minute away and I worked there as a nurse.
Moments later, he'd pulled up the car. Keeping my eyes to the ground, I opened the passenger door and stumbled into the entrance of the A&E. A man spotted me - my face full of tears, clothes dishevelled. ‘You all right, love?' he asked.
‘No,' I sobbed. ‘I've been raped.'
Those next few moments were a cold blur - the police being alerted, a police surgeon taking swabs. ‘In case we get any of his DNA,' he explained, gently.
The police then contacted Frank and told him what had happened. Once I'd changed into clean clothes, I was shown into a waiting area where Frank and his parents were.
‘We're so sorry, love,' Frank's mum Julie hushed. But as I caught Frank's eyes, he looked down at the ground, before hugging me.
‘You're okay now,' he said, gently. But his voice was on edge, his hug stiff. I put it down to the guilt he must have been feeling for letting me walk off alone. But the truth was, I didn't blame him... I blamed myself. I shouldn't have stormed off.
After giving a statement to the police, I was driven back home to my heartbroken parents.
A manhunt begun straight away, with police stopping cars along the road where I'd been attacked and questioning drivers.
Back at home, I was too afraid to go out. I became a nervous wreck, every creak of the stairs, every unexplained noise scaring me.
‘What's so hard is that he saw my face, but I never saw his,' I whispered to Frank one afternoon.
‘Try not to go over it,' he sighed, shifting uncomfortably. ‘Maybe that way you can block it out, forget it happened.'
I was shocked. I desperately wanted to speak about it, to try and get my head around why I'd been targeted. But from that moment, Frank made it clear he never wanted to speak about that night again. Everyone - Frank, Mum, Dad - quickly changed the subject whenever it came up. I suppose they thought they were helping me move on...but I couldn't.
‘We've been unable to come up with any leads,' a detective admitted a few weeks later. ‘But the case will remain on file.'
I was numb. My attacker was still out there and I didn't know who he was.
At night, when I closed my eyes, I'd feel those hands belonging to this faceless man clawing at me. When I finally plucked up the courage to go outside, I kept looking over my shoulder. Was it that guy waiting at the bus stop? Or the bloke at the newsagents?!
One day, a man brushed my arm at the supermarket as we reached for the same loaf of bread.
‘Sorry,' he grinned, staring into my eyes just a bit too long. Was it him? Heart thumping fast, I turned and fled.
Desperate for distraction, I returned to work. But as I tended a patient on the ward one day, she held up a copy of the local paper.
‘Did you hear about that poor girl who got raped?' she sighed, showing me a police appeal. ‘They still haven't found him.'
‘Poor thing,' I mumbled. Then sobbing, I fled to the toilets.
I knew I couldn't work there any more, not now. So I asked to be transferred to another hospital.
Back home, I resented Frank for not being able to talk and I shuddered when he touched me, remembering the last time a man's hands had been on me.
But, somehow, we stumbled on and got married three years later. Even as we said our vows though, I knew we'd already lost what we'd once had.
Once upon a time, he'd whisked me away to Rhodes for a romantic holiday together.
‘I love you, Michaela,' he'd whispered as we soaked up the sun, arm in arm. So how had it come to this?
We barely spoke, resented one another for everything that was left unsaid. Still, we carried on and I gave birth to our daughter Shaunna, followed by Christy, a beautiful baby boy, a year later.
But at just eight weeks old, Christy was diagnosed with a rare metabolic condition.
‘He'll suffer seizures and never be able to walk or talk,' a consultant admitted. The news drove a further wedge between me and Frank as we retreated to our own private hells. Finally, when Christy was one, we split for good.
A single mum now, with two kids to look after, the nightmare of my rape never left me. I never stopped looking over my shoulder, never stopped turning off the news whenever a rape story came on.
As the years passed, I'd wonder if my attacker had settled down to marriage and kids. Had he enjoyed the happy ever after that he'd denied me?
A few years after my divorce, I met John, 50. Soon enough, I'd told him what happened that terrible night. But rather than seem awkward, he said all the things I'd wished Frank had said.
‘Whenever you need to talk, I'm here for you,' he soothed, wrapping his arms around me.
‘Thank you,' I sighed, so grateful for the comfort he gave me. A few years later, we'd married and I'd welcomed another daughter, Angelica, into the world. But it didn't last. Before too long, we'd sadly grown apart and split.
I was rocked again two years later when my darling Christy passed away from his condition. He was only 14. My girls were all I had left now and, as they grew older, I couldn't help but be overprotective of them.
By the time Shaunna was 16, she'd started going out with mates at night. I was forever telling her to be careful.
‘Mum, stop being paranoid,' she chuckled one evening.
‘No, sweetheart,' I insisted. ‘I was attacked once.'
She looked shocked, but I didn't feel it was right to go into the details. ‘Just look after yourself,' I hushed. Then, a month or so later, me and the girls were watching telly when there was a knock at the door. A smartly dressed man and woman stood on the doorstep. What could they want? I thought to myself.
‘We're from the Metropolitan Police,' the man explained, flashing his identity card. ‘We're here to talk to Michaela Barnes, once Mays.'
He referred to my maiden name, even though I hadn't used it for years, but the penny still hadn't dropped. I ushered them in.
‘We need to talk to you about something you were a witness to back in 1987,' he had explained.
That night? Shaking, I told the girls to go and wait upstairs.
‘We've done a cold case review and have arrested someone as a result of the DNA evidence,' he explained.
Tears streamed down my face now. Partly shocked, part in disbelief. ‘You've found him?' I stumbled.
‘We think so,' he said. ‘You may have to give evidence.'
‘Whatever you need, I'll do it,' I insisted. I struggled to take it in as they took another mouth swab for my DNA. It had been nearly 25 years since that monster had attacked me.
Weeks went by before the police confirmed there would be a trial.
I wasn't required to give evidence, but I was still determined to be at court to see the man accused. I needed to see his face at last.
So, in October last year, I sat in the Old Bailey as John William Good, 54, stood in the dock. My stomach tightened as I looked at this skinny, mouse-like man. He couldn't even look me in the eye.
Had I ever passed him in a shop? Walking down the street? Over the years, I'd built up a picture of a gruff, aggressive bloke. But he just looked pathetic.
I gasped when he pleaded not guilty to kidnap and two counts of rape. ‘I was nowhere near the area,' he insisted. Hearing that voice again, I shivered. It made the hairs on my arms shoot up. Now, after all this time, I knew who he was.
The prosecution told the jury that Good had been arrested for an unrelated drink driving offence in July 2011. Advances in DNA matched him to the DNA sample taken off me following my attack.
Later, as a guilty verdict was delivered, I sobbed and shook. But they were tears of sheer relief. Finally, the judge jailed Good for 12 years. Now, at long last, I could finally stop looking over my shoulder.
A year on, I'm looking forward to the future. I want other women who have been raped, but whose attackers haven't yet been caught, not to give up hope. One day, someone may knock on their door too with the news they've been longing for. That man in the darkness robbed me of 25 years of my life, but I'm no longer living in the shadows myself.

*Some names have been changed


Michaela Barnes, 47, Broadstairs, Kent