Attacker faces life in jail over 'den' victim raped eight times

Published on Tuesday 13 October 2009 22:05

A WOMAN snatched off the street by two men and subjected to a horrific sexual ordeal for eight hours in a filthy makeshift den told police she feared she would not get out alive.

The 24-year-old woman was abducted in broad daylight in Edinburgh and initially hoped the men were intent only on robbing her. However, she was repeatedly raped.

The woman was finally allowed to leave, and ran the short distance home.

Describing her nightmare to police, the woman said: "That fear of everything you've ever feared in your life is about to happen to you … that is what I thought at the start."

Yesterday, one of the men, Michal Marchlewski, 21, a Pole, was told he could be facing a life sentence for a crime which a judge said had involved "an extraordinary level of wickedness". He pleaded guilty to rape and abduction. His co-accused, Tomasz Kryczyk, 26, his cousin, killed himself while on remand.

The High Court in Edinburgh was told that the woman had used a footpath linking the Telfer Subway and Dalry Road, at the rear of a Lidl store, on "countless occasions" without any problems.

But on the afternoon of 16 February, as she walked past two men, she was sprayed in the face with pepper spray. She was grabbed and dragged through undergrowth and down an embankment to a shelter which had been created in the fire escape doorway of a disused industrial unit.

"She shouted and screamed for help, but to no avail," said advocate-depute Andrew Miller.

Kryczyk pressed a screwdriver against her head, and repeatedly told her: "Cash you go … no cash you die."

The panicking woman tried to give the men her bank card PIN, and Marchlewski left the den but returned to say he had failed to withdraw cash. He was given a different number and left again, and while he was away, Kryczyk began to sexually assault the woman.

"She recalls Kryczyk raping her five or six times during the eight hours she was held by him and the accused. She recalls the accused raped her twice," added Mr Miller.

The woman was also subjected to a series of sexual indignities, until she heard the men talking about taking a taxi to Glasgow, and she was told she could leave.

Mr Miller said that in the immediate aftermath of the incident, the woman had felt she was almost on some sort of "euphoric high" because she realised she was alive. However, shock and sickness kicked in a couple of weeks later. Both she and her husband were receiving counselling.

Lord Bracadale said he wanted a risk assessment carried out on Marchlewski, for a possible order for lifelong restriction.

He continued the case until January.