Girl, 14, walking to school abducted and raped in car
A 14-yeAr-old schoolgirl walking to school was snatched off the street before being driven away and raped in the car by two men.
The victim was grabbed near a busy crossroads by a man who pushed her into the car where an accomplice waited, police said yesterday.
Schools urged pupils to walk in groups as police stepped up patrols after the girl endured an ordeal lasting nearly four hours. She managed to escape and raised the alarm in a housing estate two miles away.
It came just three days after a 19year-old woman was sexually assaulted by two men in the early hours as she walked home from a night out in nearby Headington.
Thames Valley Police are investigating possible links between the attacks but said there were no definitive ones at this stage. yesterday the officer leading the hunt for the sex attackers said a ‘small silver hatchback’ – possibly a Volkswagen – held the key to finding the two white men who carried out the latest attack.
They struck in the affluent Summertown area of oxford between 8am and 8.40am on Wednesday.
Forensic teams were searching a wooded area close to the housing estate where she was found at Marston village.
The ‘extremely traumatised victim’ is thought to have stumbled through the woods – where triple killer Jed Allen was found hanged after murdering three members of his family in didcot last year – after escaping from her attackers.
The girl, who is thought to attend a private school in oxford, was snatched near a doctor’s surgery before being driven to a quiet spot where she was raped by both men in the car, det Supt Chris Ward said. She was not wearing headphones when she was grabbed, the officer noted. ‘This is a very, very, very unusual offence,’ he said.
‘People may have seen the abduction without realising exactly what was going on. The girl may have been hugged, like a bear hug, before being placed in the car, rather than being dragged into the car. There is woodland in the whole of that area [between the abduction and where the girl was found]. I believe the rape happened in the vehicle so finding the vehicle is key.’
He said officers were still interviewing the girl, who was being supported by specially-trained staff. No further description was available of the suspects, but there was nothing to suggest the girl knew her attackers. The child’s school had not informed her parents when she failed to arrive.
det Supt Ward added: ‘As a father of a child of a similar age, I know exactly how difficult this is for people and how shocking this crime is. More than one person committed the offence.
‘We are doing all we can to find the people responsible.’
The officer appealed for anybody who saw a silver hatchback with people inside or acting suspiciously to come forward. He urged Summertown commuters to review dashcam or cycle helmet-cam footage in case they captured the abduction or suspects on video.
yesterday police searched wheelie bins in the Marston street where residents raised the alarm after the distressed girl knocked on doors for help. officers also searched gardens with sniffer dogs.
A hairdresser working at a salon a street away added: ‘It makes me sick to think that poor girl ended up knocking on doors for help while we were yards away, oblivious.
‘This estate is off the beaten track. If she’s been brought here or near here then the people responsible must have local knowledge.’
There are a number of schools in the Summertown area, which all said students had been warned to take extra care.
late yesterday, forensic teams were seen carrying evidence bags away from woodland near where the girl was found, as a search apparently centred on a clearing in the bushes.
detectives launched a full-scale manhunt for Jed Allen, 21, after the bodies of his half-sister derin, mother Janet Jordon, 48, and her boyfriend Philip Howard, 44, were found in their home in didcot in May 2015. The hunting knife that had been used to kill all three was embedded in Mr Howard’s body.
‘This is a very, very unusual offence’