Woman's terror leap to escape sex fiend

A WOMAN who plunged from the window of her flat as she desperately tried to escape a sex attacker has told how she thought she was going to die.

The victim was left with a spinal injury and a broken ankle after falling from the bathroom window of her home near Musselburgh to escape the clutches of 46-year-old Alexander Gemmell.

Gemmell, who has a previous conviction for rape and has been linked to other sex attacks, was yesterday jailed and placed on a lifelong restriction order with a judge warning he posed a high-level of risk to the public.

It means he will only be released from prison if the parole board consider it safe and would remain under supervision.

Gemmell carried out his latest sex attack on the 47-year-old woman at her home after she met him at a bus stop in Princes Street.

She had missed the night bus home to East Lothian and Gemmell offered to pay for a taxi. She said she "kind of felt sorry for him" and offered him a place to stay as he said he lived in a hostel. But when they arrived at her first floor home, Gemmell's mood altered.

She said: "He just said 'Look I paid for you for that taxi'. He just totally changed as if I owed him something. I said I was offering you somewhere to sleep, that's all I am offering."

Gemmell lunged at her, forcibly pulling off her clothes. She tried to get him to stop but was pushed back towards the bedroom door. She was struck on the head and the bottom part of her skirt was ripped off. Gemmell tried to push her down on a bed. "I was resisting and doing everything I could to resist him getting me on to the bed. I was trying to push him off," said the victim.

"He started to slap me on my face from side to side because I was shouting on somebody to help me. He said 'If you don't shut up I am going to stab you'."

She told the court: "I thought I was going to die. I just didn't know what was coming next. He was telling me I had to do what he said."

The victim said she had to go to the toilet and once in the bathroom decided to try to escape by getting out the window. She locked the door, ran the tap and took off her tights and boots, thinking they would be slippy. She put on a dressing gown and opened the window planning to climb down a drain pipe.

She said: "I thought he was going to come after me. I thought he was going to kill me. I didn't know if he was going to sexually assault me, like rape me, or stab me."

She lost her footing and fell towards the ground, but thought she hit a Wendy House belonging to the child of a neighbour which helped break her fall. She then managed to alert a neighbour and was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Former security guard Gemmell, who was described in court as a prisoner, had denied assaulting her on November 1 last year to her severe injury, permanent impairment and to the danger of her life with intent to rape her, but was unanimously convicted by a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh.

After his conviction, Lord Brodie called for a full risk assessment on the sex attacker.

Forensic psychologist Stephen Evans told the court he regarded Gemmell as posing a high risk of offending and that he showed a number of characteristics consistent with psychopathy. Gemmell was given a four-year sentence in 1982 after he was convicted of raping a girl. He was also acquitted of a further assault with intent to rape in 1997.

But the court heard that there was police intelligence on Gemmell over further allegations of rape and sexual assault, including the rape of a 68-year-old woman in her home in Inverness.

Lord Brodie told Gemmell he had "no alternative" but to impose an order for lifelong restriction on him, but ruled he should serve at least four years and three months in jail.