A woman who was subjected to repeated violent rapes by a man who threatened to kill her and post sexual images of her online has spoken out to encourage other rape victims to come forward.
Patrick Fitzgerald Shaw, 51, was jailed for life at Inner London Crown Court on Thursday after being found guilty of three charges of raping the victim between February 2013 and March last year.
Speaking after the sentencing, his victim told of her relief that the “sadistic psychopath and serial rapist” who reduced her to “a broken shell” was behind bars.
She said: “Trying to find a meaning with all of this. If I could help just one person to be more vigilant and not take a stranger at face value. I feel that if a past victim does read this they may come forward.”
The woman also called for a written guide to be given to women subjected to sexual violence to help them through the process afer reporting the crime.
Inner London Crown Court heard how Shaw, 51, of Boundary Road, a former director of Smart Modelling Ltd, in Finchley Road, and UK Urban Sport Ltd, lured his victim with promises of a job before subjecting her to three violent rapes at knifepoint on February 6 and March 1 last year and sometime between February 2013 and March 1 2014.
In a statement read to the court, the victim described her ordeal at his hands as a “living nightmare”.
She described Shaw as a “violent narcissistic psychopath.” who subjected her to “forced imprisonment, physical and mental abuse...torturous acts, violence, threats and humiliation”.
She said: “After my initial meeting with Patrick Shaw I did not realise I was walking into a carefully, calculated, well-practiced psychological trap.”
She told of “physical abuse, slapping, punching, kicking, strangulation, hair pulling, using a knife to poke, cut and stab my body.
“All this was calculated and planned to induce the maximum terror.”
She described how he forced her to have “unsafe sex and be photographed during sexual acts, which he then threatened to publish” so that her life became “filled with the humiliating knowledge that the sex videos and naked pictures would be seen by my father and downloaded on the internet and the terrorising fear that at any moment my life would end.”
She said: “Shaw boasted about his connections with violent criminals that could ‘take me and my family out’ with just a phone call.”
She said: “The tortured abuse from rape to shame has affected me deeply on every level of my living existence: physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially.”
Jailing Shaw for life, Judge Madge ruled he must serve no less than nine years and 331 days in prison.
Speaking after the sentencing she spoke of her relief: “With the constant support from my family and as the trial has ended I now begin to receive the counselling I need to heal.”
The woman Shaw raped has called for a written guide to be given to victims of sexual violence from the moment they report the crime.
She said she lost faith with the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as she struggled to understand the investigation and trial process.
She told the Ham&High: “Most of my questions were left unanswered and when answered I had to wait for agonising delays.”
And she added: “When I repeatedly conveyed my concerns of safety, they were not taken seriously.”
She claims she was not given information about Shaw’s whereabouts or of restraining orders.
She said: “The journey after Patrick Shaw’s arrest led me to where I was sailing on a shoreless sea. Totally alone.”
She continued: “My mental wellbeing has diminished due to the fact of having to wait for counselling. If at the initial stages I was given a book called From Report to Court - A handbook for adult survivors of sexual violence, published by Rights of Women - I would have understood what to expect.
She ended her statement with the words: “I will heal from this, I will find a way to let go and not carry the identity of a forlorn rape victim.”
As Shaw was jailed for life, she said: “I start counselling this week. There is a lighthouse in my world that I can now sail to.”
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