Daily Mail
May 7, 2015
The Oxford University student who wrote a powerful open letter to her sex attacker has told a court that she can’t close her eyes ‘without hearing his footsteps behind her’ as he was jailed for two years today.
Last month Ione Wells, 20, prompted an outpouring of public support when she wrote a defiant missive to her assailant, telling him he ‘would not win’ after the brutal attack in Chalk Farm, north London.
The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, grabbed Miss Wells from behind as she walked home after a night out.
He pushed her to the ground and smashed her head against the pavement, before grabbing at her chest with such force that it tore her bra in half.
The youth court heard that the attacker, who lives with his large Somali family in a council flat in a tower block in Camden, London, was only stopped when Miss Wells’s screams were heard by neighbours who confronted him.
He was today given a two-year detention order for sexual assault at Highbury Magistrates’ Court.
Miss Wells previously said she was considering sitting in court to watch as the teenager was sentenced, but she was not at Highbury Magistrates’ today.
Instead, a moving impact statement was read out to the court on behalf of Miss Wells, in which she described the psychological harm she has suffered, including anxiety attacks, insomnia and recurring flashbacks, since her attack.
It said: ‘I can’t close my eyes without hearing my attacker’s footsteps behind me.
‘He knows the area where my neighbours and I live and I am anxious that he will come back to get me.
‘I feel insecure about myself. I can’t look at my own body without thinking how my attacker hit me so hard that I bled.
‘My body feels tainted and violated by a stranger who thought he had the right to violate my body.
‘I panic about how long this will last.’