For the last time, rapist interrogates victim

A computer expert was convicted yesterday of the sadistic rape of his former fiancée in what is expected to be the last case where a victim can be cross-examined in court by her attacker.

A computer expert was convicted yesterday of the sadistic rape of his former fiancée in what is expected to be the last case where a victim can be cross-examined in court by her attacker.

The information technology manager was convicted at the Old Bailey in London of subjecting the nurse, 28, to a 24-hour assault - tying her to a bed and raping her at knifepoint.

He was allowed to crossexamine the ward sister for three hours during the 11-day trial, frequently reducing her to tears, after choosing to conduct his own defence.

Legislation banning rape defendants from questioning their alleged victims in the witness box is due to come into force at the beginning of next month.

The ban, under the new Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act, follows public outcry over a series of cases where rapists have made their victims relive the assaults in court.

The IT expert, 31, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victim, frequently threw the trial into chaos by ranting at the judge over prison conditions and refusing to sit in court for all but three days of the proceedings.

The Common Serjeant of London, Judge Neil Denison QC, remanded the rapist for pre-sentence psychiatric reports, saying that more needed to be known about his "mental state".

In a flavour of the bizarre proceedings, the guilty verdicts on nine counts were delivered by the jury of five men and seven women in the defendant's absence after he refused to leave his cell.

On hearing the verdict his victim gave a whoop of delight and hugged her mother, who had accompanied her throughout the trial.

The nurse, who was working at St George's Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, appealed afterwards for other women to be spared the ordeal. She said in a statement: "I am extremely pleased at the result. I hope that no other victim of sexual assault will be traumatised under cross-examination by a defendant."

The jury returned majority guilty verdicts on three counts of rape, one of false imprisonment, and three of indecent assault. A unanimous verdict was returned on one count of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm with intent. The attacker was also found guilty by majority of soliciting to murder.

The computer programmer, who lived in Saudi Arabia, had attacked his victim in her home on a date between June and July last year after she called off their engagement. He flew into a jealous rage and demanded the nurse reveal all her previous sexual partners as he imprisoned her in her home and embarked on a horrific assault.

She was sexually assaulted while gagged and trussed as well as being threatened with mutilation and throttled so badly that one of her eyes was partly removed from its socket, the court was told.

Her attacker later plotted while on remand in prison to kill his former fiancée by offering an inmate £20,000 so she was "removed off the face of the earth so she could not talk and give evidence".

The IT manager will be sentenced at an unspecified date after psychiatric reports.