Commuters film ‘rape’ on train but did not call cops
PASSENGERS on a US train used their phones to record a woman being raped but did not try to help her, police say.
More than two dozen stops and 40 minutes passed as the attacker harassed and groped the victim, it is claimed.
She tried to push him away before he assaulted her on the commuter service outside Philadelphia, officers said.
Police pulled the man off the woman at the final stop after a worker with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Septa) raised the alarm – but say they did not receive a single emergency call from passengers.
Suspect Fiston Ngoy has been charged with rape and related offences. The homeless 35-year-old told detectives he knew the victim, but could not remember her name, and said the encounter was consensual. He is due in court on Monday.
Septa police chief Thomas J Nestel III (pictured) said: ‘I can tell you that people were holding their phone up in the direction of this woman being attacked.’ He would not give an approximate number of witnesses and it was unclear how many passengers were present. Supt Timothy Bernhardt, of the Upper Darby Police Department, said CCTV footage showed someone ‘should have done something’. Prosecutors could decide to bring charges against those who stood by. Septa called the attack on the Market-Frankford Line, its busiest route, a ‘horrendous criminal act’, adding: ‘It may have been stopped sooner if a rider called 911.’ Dr Elizabeth Jeglic, a psychologist who studies sexual violence prevention, said that in 90 per cent of cases strangers would intervene but it was ‘somewhat of an aberration in this case that somebody did not step forward’.