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Sally Anne accused 'tried to rape me'
Rob Singh, Crime Reporter12 Feb 2008
The man accused of murdering Sally Anne Bowman violently attacked a Jehovah's Witness when he was 17, a court heard today.
Mark Dixie set upon the woman two decades ago after she visited the flat he shared with his then girlfriend. Today at the Old Bailey his victim gave evidence about the assault in 1988, telling the court she feared she was going to be raped by Dixie.
Pub chef Dixie, 37, denies stabbing budding model Miss Bowman, 18, in September 2005. He admits having sex with her corpse, but claims someone else had killed her. Her body was found yards from her home in South Croydon.
The woman, who cannot be identified, told how she suffered a fractured jaw and damaged eye after Dixie punched her, and was part choked by her attacker.
He was later arrested and admitted indecent assault and causing actual bodily harm, the Old Bailey has been told.
The Jehovah's witness, who is now in her 60s, said she had previously visited Dixie's pregnant partner Sandra Beckhouse at her flat in Plumstead.
In June 1988, she returned after hearing Sandra had lost her baby but got no answer at the 10th floor flat. She returned back down and was crossing a bridge over the railway when a man approached and asked: "Did you want Sandra?"
The witness, giving evidence behind a screen, said: "I said 'Yes' and he said 'She's home now, do you want to see her?'. I remember asking 'Are you her boyfriend?' and he said 'Yes'."
The pair got in the lift and went up to the 10th floor but she decided not to enter the flat. She said: "I remember at that stage I felt I wasn't doing something very wise. I just felt vulnerable. He came out and said she must have gone out again. He said, 'Would you like to come in and wait for her?' I said 'No'.
"I pressed the lift to go down and the doors started to close but he came into the lift as it was closing. He said 'You have got to help me, you have to help me'." She said Dixie began fumbling with his trousers saying "I need it, I need it".
The Jehovah's Witness told the court: "I definitely thought he was going to rape me. I remember saying 'No, not again', because many years before I had been attacked."
She said his fist smashed into her eye and upper jaw, throwing her against the side of the lift. "When I struggled to my feet he got hold of my throat with both his hands. He was saying 'Please I need this'." She said she persuaded Dixie to go in her car back to her flat in Plumstead.
She added: "He told me not to scream or he would kill me."
She drove to her parents' house and told Dixie to wait at the gates. When he realised someone was in the house he fled. Dixie's defence team suggested she had " exaggerated" her evidence to the court.
The trial continues.
