‘Sex Attacker Struck As Victim Went To Work’

A young woman told a jury how she was ambushed by a teenage sex attacker and pulled down a dark alleyway in Edinburgh’s New Town.

The 28-year-old fought off her assailant for two minutes before a passer-by heard her screams and chased him away.

Yesterday she told a jury at Edinburgh Sheriff Court that if it had not been for the intervention she would have been the victim of a sexual assault.

The retail manager said she still had panic attacks from her ordeal.

She identified Colin Wallace, 18, as the man who attacked her as she walked to work last March in Gloucester Lane, near Queen Street.

Wallace denies assault with intent to rape. He also denies having a knife at the scene.

When asked to identify Wallace, she said she was 120 per cent certain that he was the man who attacked her.

On the first day of the trial, the jury heard the woman was on her way to work when she noticed a man walking behind her as she made her way along Queen Street. She thought nothing more of it.

But as she made her way down a deserted narrow lane leading to the building where she worked, she heard ice cracking under somebody’s feet.

When she turned round, she was face to face with Wallace, she told the court.

In evidence, she recalled: “I started to panic a little because he had all of a sudden reappeared and I knew something wasn’t quite right.”

The woman told of her fear as she quickened her pace, only to find her assailant doing the same.

She said: “I just looked at him and said ‘Oh no’ because I knew what he was going to do. He walked right towards me without looking at me or giving me any acknowledgement.”

The attacker then grabbed her around the neck and began trying to pull her to the ground.

The pair struggled as the witness tried to keep herself from falling and screamed for help.

When Harry Ault, a 51-year-old cleaner from Stockbridge approached to help her, the attacker ran off.

Mr Ault told the court: “I heard a girl screaming. I saw a tall guy holding a girl round the chest and trying to drag her up Gloucester Lane.

“As I ran towards them, he looked up and when he saw me he dropped the girl and ran off,” he said.

After patrolling the area, police picked up Wallace, who matched the description given by the woman, the court heard. The trial continues.