Men guilty of attack on woman

Date published: 18 September 2013


TWO MEN have been found guilty of subjecting a terrified woman to a horrendous sex ordeal while holding her captive in a squalid Oldham flat.

A two-week trial heard the men, Michael Parker (24) and Michael Cregan (21) deny punching, kicking and Cregan ultimately raping the woman before she grabbed a chance to escape.

A jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts after they pleaded not guilty to false imprisonment and assault. Cregan also denied rape. The pair will be sentenced in November.

Their victim wept as she described how she had been ambushed by the pair at the Victory Apartments in Union Street, where she was visiting a friend.

She was blasted in the face with a fire extinguisher as she got out of the lift, then hit and kicked by Parker, chased and recaptured and finally dragged into a dark, miserable empty flat, where she was raped.

The pair believed her to be a drug-user and initially bullied her to get drugs. The violence escalated when she told them she couldn’t help them.

She refused sex with them, and when she rejected Cregan’s offer of £10 for sex with him, he raped her.

The woman eventually managed to escape, fled into the street and contacted the police.