Rape victim tells court of attack by hooded men

The first of 15 female victims of an alleged two-man team who went on "hunting trips" to find women to rape and kill told the Old Bailey of her ordeal yesterday. The rape 18 years ago was followed by a series of sex assaults that ended four years later in three murders, the prosecution said.

The first of 15 female victims of an alleged two-man team who went on "hunting trips" to find women to rape and kill told the Old Bailey of her ordeal yesterday. The rape 18 years ago was followed by a series of sex assaults that ended four years later in three murders, the prosecution said.

David Mulcahy, 41, is accused of being the dominant force in the partnership with a convicted killer and rapist, John Duffy, 41. The childhood friends were said to have formed a "wicked and evil bond".

In a pattern that was to become familiar, the two hooded men dragged their first victim off the street, held a knife to her throat, gagged her and took turns to rape her. The woman, 21 at the time of the attack in north London, was walking toher boyfriend's home carrying a teddy bear at about 4am. She told the jury she had left a party on 24 October 1982 and was walking along Kilburn High Road when she was accosted by two men she thought were joggers. She said they told her: "Don't worry, all we want is your teddy bear."

In court, the woman clutched a handkerchief and looked at her husband in the public gallery as she spoke. She said she first saw the men as she crossed the road. "They grabbed me by the arms and turned me round." They put a plaster over her mouth and a knife to her throat. "It wasn't touching my throat so I couldn't feel it. I put my hand up. The one in the dark tracksuit said, 'Don't worry, love, it is a knife'."

The men pushed her over a garden wall of a derelict house. "Behind the wall there was a lot of rubble," she said. "The man in the darker suit pushed me on the ground. I knew what was going to happen. He still had a knife to my throat. The other one was holding my arm." The men both raped her and left after warning her not to move for two minutes.

The woman went to the police but they were unable to catch the rapists. She said that in January last year she was "shocked when police knocked at my door after all this time".

The prosecution alleges that the rapists were Mr Mulcahy and Duffy, who last year admitted the offence.

Mark Dennis, for the prosecution, has told the jury that, according to Duffy "they had been thrilled by what had happened. They both agreed it was easy and exciting, and they would do it again. It would begin what was a campaign of attacks that would result in murder." He told the jury that the pair had gone on "hunting trips" by car.

Duffy was jailed for life in 1988 for two murders, but has since confessed to a series of rapes, mostly around Hampstead Heath in north London. Ten years after the offences he named Mr Mulcahy, a father of three, as his partner in 12 rapes and attempted rapes and three sexually motivated murders.

Mr Mulcahy, of Chalk Farm, north London, denies three murders, seven rapes and five offences of conspiracy to rape between October 1982 and March 1985. The alleged victims were aged from 17 to 32.

He is charged with murdering Alison Day, 19, in Hackney Wick, east London, in December 1985; Maartje Tamboezer, 15, in April 1986 in Horsley, Surrey; and Anne Lock, 29, at Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire, in May 1986.

The trial continues.