Court ordeal for rape victim

Pressure for a review of court procedures in sexual cases intensified yesterday after a gang-rape victim made legal history by spending 31 hours in an Old Bailey witness box.

The victim, a 20-year-old Japanese student, was questioned by barristers for each of six defendants, aged from 15 to 23, who had kept her a sexual prisoner for nearly two days.

Disclosure of the torment of the lengthy court proceedings, spanning 12 days in all, came as Judge Graham Boal handed down a total of 15 sentences ranging from 30 months to 10 years, for rape, aiding and abetting rape, and indecent assault.

It is the responsibility of the judge to control oppressive questioning but Judge Boal told the attackers, who argued the woman had consented: "For over 30 hours this girl had to relive the ordeal in a public court and in front of total strangers. Outrageous suggestions were put to her on your instructions. You, not your counsel, added insult to injury and heaped further humiliation on her."

Legal sources later challenged claims that the woman had been repeatedly asked the same questions. They said the trial had been prolonged due to a number of factors, including the need for an interpreter.

The principal cross-examination is claimed to have taken about three days, but most of the others were much shorter. Three to four days were spent giving evidence in chief for the prosecution.

The Victim Support charity called on the Bar Council to examine the use of multiple defence counsel and repetitive questioning.

A fortnight ago, victims and women's groups called for a change in the law after a rapist defending himself was allowed to cross-examine his victim for six days.

The gang, which included three brothers, was led by Garrard Molloy, 16, who had promised the woman there would be no sexual contact after insisting that she stay at his Brixton home rather than cross London to her own flat after watching a film. Once there he raped her twice and, the judge said, "shared her around your friends as though she were an inanimate plaything". Molloy took her to another house where he raped her again, followed by three others. The following morning she was indecently assaulted by three of the gang.