A young woman has described how she used “logic” rather than “courage” when she seized her chance and smashed a vodka bottle over Joseph McCann’s head, bringing an end to her 14-hour rape ordeal.
The 25-year-old was snatched just after midnight on April 25 as she walked home in Walthamstow, east London, and repeatedly raped, the Old Bailey heard.
While still holding her captive in a car, McCann, 34, allegedly kidnapped a second woman from the street in Edgware, north London, threatened to “slit her throat” and sexually assaulted her.
The women managed to escape and run towards builders near the Phoenix Lodge hotel in Watford, Hertfordshire, the court heard.
Giving evidence, the woman told jurors: “It was not about courage. It was about logic, the best time to incapacitate him.”
In a videoed police interview played in court, the 25-year-old woman told how McCann said to them: “I’m going to put my arms round you and you need to smile,” before ordering them out of the car at the hotel.
Instead, the woman grabbed a vodka bottle and hit him over the head, she said.
McCann reacted angrily, saying: “What the fuck,” jurors heard.
The witness said: “I saw it smash and he turned round and looked at me and was shouting and I dropped the stuff and ran up the road towards the builders shouting for help and saying we had been kidnapped.
“I ran up to one of them and said: ‘I need your phone, I need your phone,’ but he didn’t understand me.
“I ran up the road and a man said: ‘Come in here,’ and I went into the shop.
“As soon as I got into the shop I started just crying and I could not believe that I was in there.
“I turned round to look out and I saw the car drive away. I thought that meant he had driven away with her so I told them she was there.
“I looked down and was bleeding and there was lots of people there and they were saying: ‘Don’t worry, you are safe,’ and there is people that will protect me.
“The next thing I remember is the other girl coming in.“
She told police her attacker was white with blue eyes and a “weird” Irish accent.
He wore a white rosary and had tattoos, including one that said “bobbie”, she said.
At one point a man had called him John, but he allegedly told her: “Don’t worry that’s not my real name. If that was my real name I would have to kill you both.”
Under cross-examination, Jo Sidhu QC suggested on McCann’s behalf that both women had got into McCann’s car “willingly” and engaged in consensual sex.
The witness repeatedly denied it, saying she was terrified of McCann and “always waiting to raise the alarm”.
McCann, from Harrow, west London, denies 37 charges relating to 11 women and children including rape, false imprisonment and kidnap.
The trial continues.
