A night of terror for a British tourist near Zadar, as she fought off an assault and attempted rape from a local now in custody. Her story.
TCN was contacted recently by a distressed British woman, who claimed to have been assualted by a local Croatia man from the hotel she was staying in near Zadar, a man who tried to rape her and then threatened to kill her as she made her escape, running several miles until the police apprehended the perpetrator, who is now in police custody. Before deciding to publish the story, we needed to check on the facts, and therefore contacted the Ministry of the Interior head office in Zagreb for more information. Our enquiry was sent to Zadar and elicited this speedy response from Elis Žodan, the Zadar police administration PR officer on July 14, 2016:
“Dear Sir, on Friday, 8, July 2016, Zadar police received a telephone call from a Croatian citizen who claimed that a woman was calling for help in the village of Briševo, near Zadar. Police officers who responded on this call, on the spot found a female British citizen ( born 1987.), and a 43-year old male Croatian. Since she was injured, police officers drove her to the hospital in Zadar, and arrested a Croatian citizen.
“During the same day, we finished a criminal investigation, and filed criminal charges against the Croatian citizen for attempted rape.
“At this moment he is in jail at Zadar county court.”
We contacted the British Embassy in Zagreb for more information, to be informed only that “we have been providing support to a British national in Croatia and have been in contact with the local authorities” – standard protocol in ongoing cases such as this.
According to emails from the alleged victim to TCN, the 29 year-old British woman was on a one-week holiday, staying in a family hotel near Zadar. A member of the hotel staff invited her to a disco bar a few kilometres away, and they went in his car. Upon arrival, the bar was almost empty, and she asked to return to the hotel. She soon noticed that he was taking her back a different route, and then began touching her, while exposing himself to her in the car. She screamed and shouted, hoping to attract local people’s attention. Trying to retrieve her bag, he pulled her over to the driver’s side, pulling up in a slip road, where he punched her twice in the stomach, before forcing himself upon the woman. Screaming for help, she tried to resist him, as he attempted to pull down her trousers, laughing all the time.
She managed to kick herself free and start running away, with him shouting that he would kill her if she did not stop. She kept on running, about four miles to a restaurant, where she learned that local police had quickly acted on a call from a concerned local and arrested the man.
The alleged victim, from London, spent the whole of the following day in court proceedings, including a court hearing, where the alleged attacker was bold enough to give a thumbs up, and she felt the whole ordeal to be degrading, humiliating and inhumane. According to the alleged victim, the police officers were reluctant to give her any official documents in a language she could understand, and she felt that she could not contact a lawyer to look after her best interests. There was a translator, but both the translator and the police often spoke in Croatian and I was asked to sign documents, which she had no understanding of. The alleged victim said she came on holiday and had an attempt on my life, as well as sexual indecency. She is not confident that Croatia will take this crime seriously.
She claims she was given no paperwork to read in English about her rights, and had no phone or internet access. She had been up nearly 24 hours straight before giving a statement. The only thing that was done that was asked was that the British Embassy was called, which subsequently provided assistance.
We contacted Zadar police spokesman Žodan to ask about the policy of language assistance, as well as the prevalence of rape and attempted cases in the region. While these instances do occur, Croatia is generally a very safe country, and such cases are relatively rare.
“Dear Paul, as a victim, during the whole prosedure, and especially during the trial in front of the court, she has a right to a translation to her language. If she wants she can also hire an attorney, and also ask for help from the British embassy in Zagreb. Zadar court has also established a section for helping victims before, during and after the trial. This you can find at the link below:
http://sudovi.pravosudje.hr/zszd/index.php?linkID=10&type=L
“This was the first, and only one case of the attempt to rape in Zadar region in this year. Last year we had also one case. The perpetuator was also caught and brought to trial.”
According to the British tourist, the police brought her to hospital accompanied by a male police officer. She was examined by male doctors and X-rayed by a large male nurse who instructed her to pull down the top part of her pants. She asked for the police officer to be present, but was refused. All this time she was barefoot. As she came to leave the hospital, she was given a fistful of paperwork and ordered to sign it, which she refused to do.
That is the account of the alleged victim. She is now back in the UK, her alleged attacker is in custody, and the investigation continues.
