A teenager who used her mobile phone to film an attacker attempting to rape her has described how the trauma of reliving the ordeal through the courts took her to the brink of dropping the case.
Lillian Constantine, 18, whose attacker was jailed in April, has waived her right to anonymity. She urged other victims to go ahead with prosecution in similar cases.
Police had used grainy footage of the two-minute assault in Ramsgate, Kent, to obtain an image of her attacker’s face after there was no match on a database with a DNA sample.
They used this to trace Ashraf Miah, 34, a restaurant worker of no fixed address, who was in Britain illegally. Miah was jailed for 13 and a half years after he admitted attempted rape. It is believed to be the first time that a victim’s footage of a sex assault has been used in court.
Ms Constantine told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “A lot of young people get a bit of grief for being on their phones but we are walking around with small devices on us which could do us so much good.”
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She said that she became depressed after being asked to recount what had happened. “I got to a point where I was absolutely convinced I was going to drop the case,” she said. “I had to do a video interview giving evidence and I had to give all the horrible gritty details and I said ‘I’m done’.”
She appealed to other victims of sexual assaults to come forward. “Don’t let it consume you, don’t let it define you. The whole process can feel toxic and overwhelming. You will find closure . . . you are not in the wrong.”
Ms Constantine quickly hit the record button on her phone when her attacker asked her where she was going. “He started to try to tackle me to the floor. It was like, arms round the shoulders, his leg trying to trip me up, anything he could to try and ground me,” she told the Sunday Mirror last month.
“I had no idea why at first. The first thing that came into my head was he was going to mug me. I was screaming the whole time, ‘I’m filming you, I’m filming you. I’m going to call the f***ing police, I’m filming you right now. You are not going to get away with this.’ ”
Residents heard her screams and the attacker ran when he heard a door slam.