'I've lived with what he did for so long...' says victim of rapist Dennis Fitzgerald (From Bournemouth Echo)

'I've lived with what he did for so long...' says victim of rapist Dennis Fitzgerald

4:00pm Saturday 20th March 2010 in

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TODAY marks a new beginning for a Poole mother who woke to find an intruder in her bedroom.

Every woman’s worst nightmare became a reality when total stranger Dennis Fitzgerald threatened to harm her sleeping daughter if she didn’t comply with his sexual demands.

After pushing her face into a pillow to stifle her screams, he tied her dressing gown belt over her eyes and gagged her, threatening to strangle her before raping her twice.

More than 22 years have passed but time hasn’t healed the emotional scars inflicted by Fitzgerald in the early hours of November 21, 1987.

After sobbing Fitzgerald finally met his fate, his victim, who is in her early forties but cannot be named for legal reasons, said: “It is never going to go away.

“I’ve lived with what he did to me that night for so long. I thought I was going to die and that he was going to hurt my daughter. Now I’ve relived it all in court.

“But, for the first time, I can walk down a street without thinking that every man I meet could be him. Because I was blindfolded I couldn’t see what Fitzgerald looked like so I couldn’t give the police a description.”

Prosecuting at Bournemouth Crown Court, Jenny Rickman said the 1987 investigation had “come to nothing” but the case was never closed. She added: “Suspicion fell on other people.”

Listen to an interview with Fitzgerald's victim (pitch of the interview has been altered to ensure complete anonymity)

Seventeen years later the case was reviewed and advanced forensic techniques meant that DNA was identified from a sample taken in 1987.

But it was another five years before the law finally caught up with Fitzgerald, a married father-of-two, when he was quizzed by Nottingham police in connection with “an entirely unrelated matter.”

The breakthrough came when his DNA matched the sample taken in 1987. Inquiries showed that Fitzgerald had been at Bovington army camp at the time of the rape.

His victim was shocked to hear that he had been caught. She said: “It was something I never imagined would happen. I had given up hope.”

Fitzgerald, from Beeston, Nottingham, admitted one count of rape.

In his defence, the court heard that the rape hadn’t been planned. In a drunken state, he had gone into his victim’s flat “to warm up.”

Fitzgerald, 53, was described as “an extremely good husband and father” who had suffered from stress and depression. He wept uncontrollably as references were read out, including one moving letter from his 23-year-old son.

Sentencing Fitzgerald, Judge Samuel Wiggs told him: “It is almost impossible to think of a more frightening experience for a young woman who thinks she is safe in her own home.

“There was considerable sexual indignity, a small child in the next room and you used that child as a threat.”

His victim said: “I’m satisfied with the sentence but would have preferred if he had been locked up for ever because I believe he is very dangerous.”

She urged other women to report sex attacks, no matter how long ago they happened.

The woman is still rebuilding her shattered life.

She said: “I’ve got a lovely husband, who has been very sympathetic, but some members of my family still don’t know the terrible things that happened that night. It still haunts me but hopefully the nightmares will stop now.”