Silvertown man to serve six years as cold case review brings justice

A rapist who subjected a teenage waitress to a terrifying knifepoint ordeal more than 22 years ago was jailed for six years last week.

Andrew Riley, now 39, of Drew Road, Silvertown, was only 16 when he and an unknown associate each attacked an 18-year-old student who they enticed in to their car.

She was offered a lift in Stockwell, south London, to a friends’ house on the night of September 19 1988, but was then driven to a remote area in Banstead, Surrey and repeatedly sexually assaulted for more than four hours.

The girl, a half-French half-Chilean student, was groped and touched in the back of the car on the journey to Surrey, before each of her attackers raped her.

She was threatened with a kitchen knife after attempting to fend off both men and trying to hit out at them.

Prosecutor Mark Gadsden told Woolwich Crown Court: “She was so frightened. She describes herself as being frightened for her life and, therefore, complying because of fear.”

She managed to escape around 12.30am on the journey back to London when she asked for the car to be stopped so she could go to the toilet.

The teenager managed to trick the men in to leaving her alone for a brief period on the roadside and she was able to run to a nearby house and raise the alarm.

“She had been kept captive by them and subjected to a sexual ordeal for about four to four and a half hours,” said the prosecutor.

Riley was convicted of 68 offences only weeks before the attack.

He has numerous other convictions which include a very similar indecent assault in 1993, but was only linked to the crime by his DNA profile after a “cold case review” in 2007.

He was arrested after police tracked him down to an address in Silvertown, last year.

The second man has never been identified.

Riley initially denied involvement, but later changed his plea of guilty to a single count of rape.

The court heard he has kicked a heroin addiction.

He maintains he cannot remember the incident, but accepts he was involved because of the DNA link.

In a statement read to the court the woman, now in her early 40s, said she had left England and moved to France because of the attack.

“I am very introverted and I have kept all of this inside me and never talked about it to anyone else but the police,” she said.

“I have always been very ashamed. I didn’t want to be seen as a victim.

“I have tried to live a normal life but I have never been able to have children. I don’t know if that is because of the rape.”

Jailing Riley, Judge Peter Rook QC said: “It cannot be said that you were waiting there in order to ambush likely prey but it does seem to me that once she was in that car you two formed an intention to sexually assault her.

He added: “She has been deeply affected you what has happened to her. Like many victims of rape she felt feelings of shame and equally did not want to be seen as a victim and she has attempted to blank the matter out of her life.

“This was a very serious example of rape.

“I cannot accept that you have completely forgotten this episode. You cannot have forgotten whether you raped a young girl in a car with a friend.”

Riley will serve two thirds of his sentence, four years, in prison before being released as he was sentenced under guidelines in place at the time he committed the offence.