Woman who was viciously raped at knifepoint in her own bed: 'I met attacker in prison and forgave him'

Rosalyn Boyce, who has bravely waived her anonymity, said: “I realised that the attack was about power and control. But now I am the one who has the control.”

When Rosalyn Boyce was viciously raped at knifepoint in her own bed, it cast a 15-year blight over her life that she thought she would never escape.
It cost the young mum her marriage, her home and her peace of mind. But when she realised the legacy of the attack was damaging her daughter too she took a shocking decision.
Rosalyn went to prison to meet her rapist Lee Hill. And then she forgave him.
Now she has bravely waived her right to anonymity to explain why she did the unthinkable.
“For years I felt like I had a huge neon sign on my head that said ‘rape’,” she said. “But after meeting Hill I just feel like that sign isn’t even there any more.
“The only way I could know for certain that he was no longer a danger to me was to look him in the eyes.”
Hill was already a convicted rapist when he forced his way through the patio door into her home. Her husband was in hospital with pneumonia and her 11-year-old daughter was on a sleepover at a friend’s. Only Rosalyn, then 32, and her two-year-old daughter were at home that Friday night.
Rosalyn put her daughter to bed, had a bath, and was settling down at about 9pm to read a book in bed when she saw the landing light flicker off.
Unsuspecting, she got out of bed to check whether a bulb had blown – and Hill’s silhouette loomed into view.
“One of the most chilling things is that he looked normal,” Rosalyn said.
“He was quite calm to begin with. He knew what he was going to do. You have an image of what you would expect a rapist to be like and it was nothing like that.
“He was well-dressed with smart clothes. I later found out he had actually been out like a normal Friday night beforehand.”

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Pathetic: Sobbing rapist Lee Hill

Rosalyn believes Hill had been watching the house and grabbed his chance to break in while her husband was away.
“He was jabbing the knife at my face, and it was split seconds,” she recalled. “I was screaming and he said: ‘Don’t scream, you’ll wake the baby.’ He knew she was next door. So I didn’t scream any more after that. I said, ‘You can take anything you want’. He said to me, ‘I am not here to rob you. I am just the rapist.’”
Hill told her repeatedly he was going to kill her – but after what “felt like an ­eternity” his knife broke, causing him to panic and flee.
With his criminal record, Hill was caught quite quickly. He pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey in 2001 and was given three life sentences.
It was then Rosalyn learned he had previously raped another woman in her home in a vile hour-long attack when he was just 18.
He had been released after serving half his sentence, only to commit an almost identical attack on Rosalyn just five months later.
Rosalyn tried so hard to put on a brave face after the rape. She even refused to cancel her elder daughter’s birthday party the next day. “I put a smile on my face and got on with it,” she said. But her life gradually began to fall apart.
She moved out of the family home in Esher, Surrey, after about six weeks because she couldn’t bear to live there and moved into a cramped flat where she began drinking a bottle of wine every night.
Her marriage fell apart. “I was so ­traumatised, I couldn’t do anything,” Rosalyn said. “I was not functioning. Everything I believed in I no longer believed in. I had never seen my husband cry but when I told him, he broke down. It devastated him. We had a really good marriage. But he couldn’t cope with it.”
But after her youngest daughter became sick with suspected meningitis Rosalyn knew she had to turn her life around.
“I realised my daughter getting seriously sick was the worst thing that could ever happen to me,” she said. “Which meant what happened to me that night wasn’t the worst thing.” Bit by bit, she began to reclaim her life. She trained as a counsellor and worked with charities for crime victims and the Restorative Justice Programme.
But it was only when her eldest daughter, now 27, revealed the enduring effect the rape had on her mother had left her too scared to sleep alone that Rosalyn realised she need to face her tormentor.
After months of preparation, the meeting nearly didn’t go ahead. Just five days before, Hill tried to hang himself in his cell.
It was rearranged. And from the moment Rosalyn laid eyes on him the fears that had haunted her for 15 years evaporated.
“When he was led into the room I found myself transfixed,” she said.
“I didn’t recognise the pathetic, hunched man sitting opposite me. I had an image in my mind of him for 15 years and he wasn’t the same man. There were seven people, my friend, facilitators, prison officers, and he was asked to give his version of events leading up to the attack. He took a long time to speak. He couldn’t look me in the eye. But as he described the moment he first saw me, he finally looked at me.
“He said he was a monster that night, he enjoyed violence and got a kick out of it. He apologised and said he’d had years of therapy in prison but didn’t realise until that day the actual harm he had caused.”
Rosalyn turned to her rapist and told him she forgave him and was no longer afraid of him. As she said the words, Hill began to break down, crying like a child.
He said: “I’d rather you punched me in the face than forgave me.”
Rosalyn said: “I thanked him for seeing me then I stood up and left the room. He remained seated. This time I was the one leaving him – the tables had turned.”
She now lives in Woking, Surrey, with a new partner and has an interesting and varied career as a chef, property manager and counsellor. And for the first time in years she is free of fear.
“I realised that the attack was about power and control,” she said. “But now I am the one who has the control.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-who-viciously-raped-knifepoint-6048535