Daily Mail
December 28, 2013
Daniela Vinci was finding it hard to sleep. It had been an exceptionally difficult time for the unmarried 40-year-old, who had suffered a break-in at her three-bedroom maisonette in Slough just two nights before.
Though unhurt, she had been deeply unsettled by the burglary, during which her mobile phone, laptop and bank cards had been taken while she slept.
The following day Daniela, 40, had replaced her locks, but she still felt unsafe in her own home.
Just after 11pm she checked that everything was secure and went to bed and, after tossing and turning, eventually fell into a deep sleep.
Three hours later, she was woken by a flashlight shining in her face — and found herself plunged into a nightmare.
One of the burglars who had broken into her home had returned. And this time he had come back to rape her.
Her ordeal is horrifyingly similar to that of the 59-year-old woman identified by police only as Linda, who spoke last week of how Ashley Mills, a burglar who had been convicted of breaking into her home, returned to rape her four years after the first crime.
Daniela had owned her immaculate £300,000 three-storey maisonette for six years, her retreat from the pressures of a jet-setting career as a senior cabin attendant.
‘There was a balcony on the second floor, but I would leave the window ajar because I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to climb up there,’ she says.
But in April, two young men managed to clamber up onto the balcony, breaking into Daniela’s home while she lay sound asleep upstairs. They stole her purse with her bank cards, her laptop and mobile phone, before fleeing out of the front door.
Daniela resolved to be more careful about home security. But two nights later, one of the raiders broke in again through her kitchen window.
‘As I awoke I became aware of something on my bed. I thought it was my cat, Texas, who loved cuddling up to me,’ says Daniela.
‘Suddenly I sensed a torch shining in my face. I stretched out, still half-dreaming, to switch on my bedroom light.
‘Then I saw him. I immediately realised I was in serious danger and knew instinctively it was the same man who had stolen my belongings two days before.
‘In that awful moment, the training I had done when I began work as an airline stewardess kicked in.
‘Keeping my voice as steady as I could, I said: “What’s your name? What are you doing here?”
‘He replied: “My name is Josh and I am 19.” ’
Police would later discover that he was Joseph Innocent Mwaura — a Kenyan who had committed a violent knife crime within a year of being granted a British passport at the age of 16.
As Daniela would discover, he decided to pay her another visit when he saw her photographs on the laptop he had stolen.
Daniela, who is softly spoken and slightly built, found herself in a desperate fight for survival.
‘I asked him: “What do you want?” There was a terrible pause before he replied menacingly: “I want your t**s.”
‘I knew then that this was not a simple robbery. The realisation that he planned to rape me was truly horrific.