Mother raped as daughter, 6, hides in toilet cubicle

 

A WOMAN was knocked unconscious and raped while her six-year-old daughter hid in a toilet cubicle during a terrifying daylight assault on the NSW south coast last month.

Police are hunting the man who followed the 37-year-old woman and her daughter into the toilet block at a park in Batemans Bay about 4pm on November 27.

The young girl had gone into the toilet and her mother was waiting for her when the man walked in and she “sensed something was wrong”.

She calmly told her daughter to stay in the toilet and lock the door before the man punched her and knocked her unconscious.

Wearing a grubby white t-shirt and smelling of body odour, alcohol and cigarettes, he raped the young mother while she lay unconscious.

When she regained consciousness, the man was still on top of her and quickly fled the scene, before her daughter came out of the toilet.

“There is no other way of describing this - it’s a very violent and very concerning, disturbing attack,” said Detective Inspector Michael Haddow from the Sex Crimes Squad.

“It’s occurred in daylight hours of an afternoon in a well-known, well-populated local park.”

The woman, who is from the Batemans Bay region, had taken her daughter to the park to play at the children’s playground that day.

She was taken to Moruya Hospital for treatment and her daughter escaped physically unharmed.

Because she was knocked unconscious, she remembered little about the man’s facial features but recalled him wearing a tattered, faded blue baseball cap.

Det Insp Haddow said the hat could be the crucial key in helping police find the attacker and urged the public to come forward with information.

It is not known if the man was from the area, but he said locals may recall a man who wore the cap who may have stopped wearing it, fearing he would be identified.

“The Sex Crime Squad and the Far South Coast are throwing all the resources we can at this due to the very serious, violent nature of the crime. We’re doing everything we can.”

Police want to hear from anyone who was in the area at the time of the attack, as well as anyone who might have seen a man fitting the description in the area in recent months.