Elderly blind woman raped

Press, 28 May 1983, Page 6

Elderly blind woman raped

PA Wellington The man who raped and robbed a blind woman, aged 87, in her Upper Hutt home on Thursday night had to be found “for the good of society,” said Detective Inspector Colin Wilson, the head of the Lower Hutt C. 1.8., last evening. The woman spent two hours trying to get help after the rape. Her telephone had been ripped from the wall so she had crawled to the front door and rang her doorbell and blown on a whistle.

She was eventually found by a nurse, lying on the pavement outside her home.

Mr Wilson said the identity of the rapist was likely to be known to someone. “He must live somewhere, possibly work somewhere, and now he has the $l5O he took from the woman. Someone must know who he is. “There is no honour in protecting someone who

commits a crime like this. For the good of society we must find out who this man is.” Mr Wilson said that the police were disadvantaged in their search for the rapist because the woman was blind. However, he said it appeared that the man had deliberately selected the Golf Road home because it was occupied by the woman and was relatively isolated. He said the man seemed to know the area, a police dog having followed what was believed to be his track across the nearby Wellington Golf Course.

Mr Wilson praised the woman. He said she had acted very courageously and did nothing to outrage the offender, which was sensible in the circumstances. The rape was a dastardly attack on an obviously blind and elderly woman, said Mr Wilson.