Victims tell of brutal sex attacks

Mark Richard Campbell (38), of Grenville Gardens, Donnington, Chichester, is accused of attacking many vulnerable women from 1998 to 2004.

Campbell, a welder and father-of-two denies 15 charges including three rapes, five indecent assaults, two false imprisonments, two burglaries, two sex assaults, and one attempted indecent assault.

During the opening speech by Christine Laing QC, Chichester Crown Court was told that all the attacks involved vulnerable females aged from 12 to their mid-twenties at isolated locations or in the women's bedrooms after their homes had been broken into. Several of the attacks were characterised by the females being bound and gagged with items of their own clothing. Miss Laing told the court that all the women remained 'deeply affected' by the events to this day.

One victim told the jury how she was indecently assaulted after she fell asleep watching television on her sofa while her three young children slept upstairs at home in Bognor Regis on February 11, 1998.

She said: "I sort of froze and he said to me that if I kept quiet he wouldn't hurt my daughter." She told the court that her attacker was insistent on her revealing her name and kept referring to her by it.

During the terrifying ordeal her hands were tied behind her back on the sofa using a pair of her daughter's tights, and covered her eyes with a jumper belonging to one of her children.

She said: "He was apologetic and kept saying that this wasn't what he had come here for."

It is also alleged that the father-of-two sexually assaulted and raped a former worker at a Bognor Regis area hotel in May 2000, when she was 21.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described to the court via a video link how she was gagged, blindfolded, tied up and raped in her bedroom. She had gone to bed at around midnight but was woken about an hour later by a man shining a torch at her face. Her attacker used one of her scarves to blindfold and gag her, and she described a smell like oil or petrol on his hands.

She said the ordeal could have lasted for about an hour, and added: "It felt like an eternity."

She said: "I was just standing there trying to block everything out. I said to him 'Please don't, please don't.'

"He started telling me that he had taken pictures of me and that if I said anything he would show these pictures of me."

The woman also told the jury how her attacker appeared to pretend to take pictures of her, making a 'clicking noise' similar to a camera as he did so.

She said: "He put my duvet over me and the next thing I remember was the sound of my door shutting but I was convinced he was going to come back.

A schoolgirl victim was dragged into woodland just yards from her home in Chichester as she walked back from school in September 1999. She told the court that as she walked home she saw a man lurking on the other side of the road but carried on walking. At one point she realised the man had crossed the road and was walking behind her and she started to walk faster. Seconds later he then grabbed her and put his right arm over her mouth.

She told the court: "He said, 'don't move, then he said, don't make a sound. Get into that bush and give me your money."

She told the court that she could feel his breath down her neck and recalled that he smelt of 'dirt and sweat' and later thought it was reminiscent of petrol.

During the ordeal, which happened when she was aged just 12, her attacker told her to pull her blazer over her head, and told her to lie on the ground. At one point he left, but then returned minutes later and told her to take her clothes off, saying she could leave her underwear on, but she refused and he said 'either you can do it or I will'. He then told her to get on the ground and then pulled her up on her knees by her shirt. After getting her to lie on the ground again he threw her jumper and blazer at her and fled.

Asked about how she felt about the events then she said: "It's still shocking, in a way I couldn't come to terms with what had happened' .

Now aged 20 she said: 'I really can't believe it happened. When I'm a having a good time I totally forget about it but when I stop what I'm doing it suddenly comes back to me," she said.

The case continues.