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Cowley Road double abduction leads to sexual assault

On Saturday, 29th
October, two twenty year-old women got into a car with a man, were taken from
outside Kebab Kid on Cowley Road
to a car park, and one of them was sexually assaulted.According
to a press release from the Thames Valley Police, "two 20-year-old women
were in the Ke­bab Kid. When they were offered a lift home by an asian man [at
around 2.30am]. He then drove the women to Bathing Place car park and sexually
assaulted one of them."The
assaulter is believed to be in his mid-twenties, with "dark spiky hair and
was wearing a grey track­suit and a pale polo shirt." He was driving a
three-door silver BMW, "believed to be a five series. The car was parked
outside the Kebab Kid with loud music coming from it," according to the
Oxford CID.Arepresentative
of the Thames Valley Police said they were un­able to provide any details as to
who the girls were "due to the nature of the case." She added that
the incident "was an alleged rape against one of the girls" and that
"the other girl went to raise the alarm, call for help and find
police."This
incident is believed to be unrelated to a sexual assault on Wednesday last week
at South Park.Eleanor
Cumbo, Vice-President (Women) of OUSU, said, "Hear­ing about incidents
like this is upsetting to students on its own terms, and even more so because
they are not infrequent. Generally speaking, Oxford students know that they don’t live in
a vacuum and are aware of the need to take sensible precautions".She
added a few words of pre­caution, advising students to "put an emergency
contact into your phone and call it ‘aaa’ or some­thing similar so that it’s at
the top of your contacts list. If you do get into a threatening situation, you
can then just press two or three buttons".The
Thames Valley Police state­ment added, "anyone with infor­mation that
could assist police in­quiries is urged to contact Oxford CId, via 0845 8 505
505. If you don’t want to speak to police and don’t want to leave your name
contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.ARCHIVE: 4th week MT 2005

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