A rape victim is campaigning for bail laws to be changed after she bumped into her attacker – who was allowed to roam free for more than three years – in the supermarket.
Kayleigh Keasley, 24, was assaulted after a night out with friends in Milton Keynes in December 2019.
Her attacker Craig Burnikell was arrested a week after the incident but wasn’t charged until February 2021 and was only jailed last month.
Ms Keasley, who has waived her right to anonymity to speak out, says the court process was “horrible and long-winded”. She is now campaigning for reform after Burnikell was bailed.
Ms Keasley has launched a petition to tighten bail conditions on people charged with rape, saying: “What they are allowed to do after being accused and convicted is ridiculous. You wouldn’t let a murderer out on the street.
“He was still out on the streets and could easily do it to someone else. By leaving it that long they’re giving him a chance to do it to other girls.
Confronting My Rapist in the Aisles of Tesco
“Two weeks after the incident happened and I’d reported it to the police, I went to Tesco and saw him in the shop. I threw my trolley and ran out of the shop, and now I can’t go to the shop alone.”
Ms Keasley was attacked by Burnikell, now 26, as she slept in his house following a night out. She was supposed to return home but, after the pair shared a taxi, she realised her bag and phone had gone missing.
This left her unable to pay the taxi fare, with Burnikell offering her a place to sleep in a guest room at his home. A court heard she woke at night to find the predator raping her.
The trial was then rescheduled and ended in a hung jury. A retrial occurred in April this year, where her attacker was convicted of rape. However, he was not remanded, and his bail continued until he was sentenced – to eight years in prison – on June 13 at Aylesbury Crown Court.
The woman was on her way to board a train in the Unnao district of northern Uttar Pradesh state to address a court hearing over her rape when she was soaked with kerosene and set on gunfire on Thursday, according to police.
She was airlifted to New Delhi for reception later that day.
The attack, the second central instance of violence against women in the past two weeks, has glowed public outrage in India.
The woman died on Friday after a cardiac seizure, Dr Shalabh Kumar, the head of the burns and plastic division at New Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital, told Reuters.
“She had 95% burns,” he said, adding the woman’s windpipe was blaze and “toxic and hot fumes” had filled her lungs.
The woman had classified a complaint with Unnao police in March, claiming she had been raped at gunpoint on December 12, 2018, police documents showed. Police arrested the woman named two local men; one of them and the other absconded.
Having been subsequently jailed, the supposed rapist was free last week after securing bail, police officer S.K. Bhagat said in Lucknow, the money of Uttar Pradesh state.
On Thursday, the rape sufferer was seized by five men, counting the two people she had named in her protestation, and beaten, stabbed and set on fire, local media describe citing her statement to police.
My Journey to Advocate for Change in Sexual Assault Laws
Still, ablaze, she walked almost a kilometre, seeking help before finally calling the police, according to the Aaj Taj TV news channel.
All five accused have been halted and are in 14-day judicial charge, Vikrant Vir, superintendent of police, Unnao, told Reuters.
A fast-track bench would hear the case, and the guilty would not afford, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said.
In India, lengthy trials, often resulting from fewer courts and judges, tend to delay convictions of relatively poor, disillusioned victims with little money and tolerance to pursue the case.
Also, long trials result in bail for the accused, who often scare victims and their witnesses and try to interfere with evidence.
The victim’s father has claimed that his family was harassed and threatened by the accused’s family.
“We tried to seek shield as the accused and their family kept threatening my daughter and my family, but we collect little help from the government,” he said. “Every accused should be either hanged or shot dead.”
