"Justice failed me": Australian rape victim

A young mother abducted at knifepoint and held captive by a serial rapist during a 29-hour cross-country nightmare wants her attacker locked away forever. The 24-year-old Ballarat woman, who was raped repeatedly during her terrifying ordeal, said yesterday that William Craig Forde should never have been free to threaten her life. Forde's latest victim, Jess, told the Herald Sun the justice system shared the blame for what he did to her. Forde, 48, pleaded guilty to 22 counts of rape during a brief appearance in Ballarat Magistrates' Court yesterday. It can now be revealed that he has three previous convictions for rape, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 25 years' jail. Forde served a total of 15 years and 10 months in jail for the three rapes and was most recently released in November.

"It makes me so angry, it really does," Jess said. "Fifteen years for three rapes is appalling. He should be getting that for one, at least. People like this should not be let out to do this to more people. It's not fair. "Why have a maximum sentence if nobody ever gets it? "If what he did to me is not worth the maximum penalty, what is?" Jess said life imprisonment was the only appropriate penalty for someone like Forde.

Jess, whose identity is protected by law, was driven more than 800km through central and northern Victoria after Forde abducted her on February 6, from the shop where she worked in Ballarat, and stole her car. She was first raped in a back room of the shop after Forde bound and gagged her and threatened to cut her throat. Later attacks during her long ordeal, which started at 10am one day and ended at 3pm the next, occurred in the car, in two remote forest clearings, and at a roadside rest stop during the night. Forde told her after driving into the Wombat State Forest that she was "going to be his little whore for a couple of days". He also told the terrified single mother: "The only thing keeping you alive is your body."

Jess told the Herald Sun this week she thought Forde was going to kill her when he took her to the top of the Hume Weir near Albury in the middle of the night. She said she was convinced he would throw her in the water, but was grateful that "at least I'd be washed up one day". "Better than out in the bush, where he'd said I might never be found," she said.

Forde uttered only one word -- "guilty" -- at yesterday's hearing. He pleaded guilty to 22 counts of rape, two of armed robbery, and one each of abduction and unlawful imprisonment. Forde has refused to participate in sex offenders' treatment programs while in jail. The Parole Board has refused five times during his past two sentences to parole him because of his unwillingness to submit to treatment. He was forced to serve his maximum sentence for both his second and third rapes.

Forde's previous victims were a 31-year-old neighbour in Thornbury, a 57-year-old woman who came to collect ironing from where he later lived in Mill Park, and a 13-year-old girl he took for a walk in bush near Whittlesea. His effective sentence for the third rape -- of the 13-year-old -- was no longer than the sentence earlier imposed, by the same judge, for the second rape. Forde's most recent sentence for the third rape, from Judge Barton Stott in 1999, was a maximum of seven years with a minimum of five. Judge Stott's sentence for Forde's second rape was 10 years with a minimum of seven; but this was reduced by one-third with remissions for good behaviour that were then available. The maximum sentence for rape was increased in 1992 to 25 years. But the maximum term has never been imposed. Three Victorian sex offenders -- Kevin Carr, Geoffrey Moffatt and Anthony Carolan -- are serving indefinite sentences.

Before his latest arrest, Forde was living at a Ballarat boarding house. He was released from the Langi Kal Kal minimum-security jail on November 7. He reported to Ballarat police in December, to be recorded as a registered sex offender. Jess saw Forde sitting on a bench outside a shop in Ballarat when she arrived for work on February 6. Police said Forde went back to his room to get a knife, rags and tape, then returned to the shop. He tied her hands and ankles, gagged her, cut off some of her clothes, then assaulted her in the back of the shop. Jess was tied to a chair while he went to get her car. Forde also went to a nearby supermarket and bought half a dozen VB stubbies and offered her a drink, which she refused. He raped her again before she was bundled into the car at knifepoint, her hands still tied, and driven away.

Forde said he was going to let her out in Ballarat North, near her six-year-old daughter's school, but instead drove to bushland near Daylesford, where he repeatedly assaulted her. She pleaded with him to release her because her daughter would be worried she hadn't been picked up after school.

Police were notified in the early evening, when her family and her employer became concerned she had not contacted them. Money was missing from the till and Jess's mobile phone was still there. Meantime, her terrifying journey continued through Guildford, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Elmore and Rochester, to Echuca. Forde then drove along the Murray Valley Highway to Albury, then to the Hume Weir in the middle of the night. He drove back to Wodonga and eventually pulled in to a roadside rest stop near Yackandandah after Jess's car ran out of oil. She was eventually freed about 3pm on February 7, when Forde let her out of the car back in Ballarat, then drove away.

He was caught about an hour later in Maryborough, when a traffic policeman noticed the car's registration label was not current and pulled him over. Ballarat detectives who heard the car check on the police radio rang Maryborough police and asked them to hold Forde.

Jess raised her finger at Forde as she left court yesterday with her mother, sisters and boyfriend. She said outside court she was relieved by Forde's early guilty plea, and grateful for the strong support of her family and friends. Forde was remanded to Ballarat County Court for a sentencing hearing on July 24.

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