Neighbors have recounted the harrowing moment they discovered a Sikh woman screaming 'I was raped' as her racist attacker fled the scene. John Ashby, 32, first spotted his victim on a bus and then stalked her to her home in Walsall, where he forced his way inside and subjected her to a horrific ordeal.
Ashby hurled vile abuse at the woman, mistakenly believing she was Muslim. He raped her in the bathroom and then ordered her into the bedroom, where she attempted to escape but was dragged back inside. He was eventually spooked by a noise, which the victim said was her housemate returning home. Ashby then fled the street, taking with him some of her jewelry and a mobile phone.
Left naked and thoroughly distressed, the victim screamed for help and told neighbors she had been raped and attacked by a white male. Ashby, formerly of Stockland Green, Birmingham, had denied rape, intentional strangulation, robbery, and religiously aggravated assault causing actual bodily harm on October 25 last year. However, he changed his pleas and confessed to all crimes on the second day of his trial at Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday, April 21.
A judge told Ashby, now of no fixed abode, that he could be jailed for life when sentenced later this week. During the trial, the jury heard from neighbors who rushed to the victim's aid. One neighbor told police how her husband heard a screeching sound at about 7:15 pm. After opening their front door, the couple could clearly hear someone screaming.
In a statement read to the court, the neighbor said: 'I could clearly hear someone in distress, screaming and calling for help. I noticed that it was coming from the house next door.' The woman walked toward the property and spotted a silhouette of a female who appeared to be naked. She told her husband to stay behind as she approached the front door. The neighbor continued: 'I could hear the female in distress, shouting words to the effect of "I was raped."' The victim appeared hysterical and was intermittently shouting that she had been raped while also asking for her mother. It was difficult to have a coherent conversation with her, the neighbor said, but she gathered that something very serious had happened.
The woman went back to her husband and dialed 999 from his phone. She said: 'I could still hear the female in distress inside the house. She was constantly screaming and shouting that she had been raped.' In the 999 call played to the court, the neighbor told the call handler: 'She is screaming and yelling she has been raped. You can probably hear her now.' The victim's desperate screams and shouts could be heard in the background of the six-minute call.
Another neighbor told police how he was at home when he heard the sound of a woman screaming really, really loud at about 7:10 pm. In a statement read to the court, he said: 'It sounded like someone had just been beaten.' The woman was saying in Punjabi 'I don't have clothes,' he said. The man walked down the street, adding: 'She said she had been raped and attacked by a white male. She said that he had said Muslim b****. She said she did not know how he had got in.' The victim was also on the phone, saying 'come home, come home,' he recalled.
A third neighbor told police how she had gone upstairs and glanced out the window, noticing a man she did not recognize. It was still light and not yet dark at the time, she said. The man, now known to be Ashby before his attack, was sitting on a wall staring straight at one of the houses opposite, she recalled. He was white, with short dark hair and wearing dark clothes. In a statement read to the court, she said: 'I could see enough of him to know that he wasn't someone I knew and he didn't live around here.'
