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Dirce Ganci suffered serious injuries in the attack by Wilson |
‘It’s a miracle I’m alive. He was strong –
I thought I was going to die’
Pensioner tells of her horror as convicted killer is jailed for life for attacking her in the street
PENSIONER Dirce Ganci stared serious danger in the face and fought back with amazing courage.
As she tells her remarkable story from the safety of her Bloomsbury home, the great-great-grandmother knows it is a miracle she is still around to tell it.
When she was ambushed near her home in April, Ms Ganci was threatened with a knife which was held to her throat and warned that a scream would mean certain death.
The scale of her misfortune that night is now crystal clear.
The man with the blade was not a chancer seizing an opportunity for a quick mugging in a back street off Tottenham Court Road. She had actually run into convicted killer Simon Wilson, who only weeks earlier had been released from an Australian jail for murder.
His name is still met with contempt among detectives in Australia where he raped six women and beat one elderly victim to death.
On Wednesday Ms Ganci, 71, bravely waived her anonymity to tell of her relief at the life prison term handed down to Wilson at Blackfriars Crown Court on Friday.
He had confessed to grievous bodily harm, sexual assault and attempted rape.
His life tariff was said to be “virtually unheard of” by Camden police officers, who are treating it as a landmark case.
Wilson was caught by CCTV images of him stalking Ms Ganci.
Detective Sergeant Sharon Freeman-Woods, from Camden police’s serious violence unit, said: “Simon Wilson is a dangerous predator and the victim suffered an extremely traumatic ordeal, which left her with serious injuries.”
Ms Ganci, a retired waitress who worked in a number of Soho cafés, told the Wsest End Extra that she still has nightmares about the attack but that she is determined to not to be too scared to leave the house.
She said: “I like to go out. I want to confront the people.”
What at first glance looked like a street robbery, albeit an exceptionally violent one, has the makings of an international dispute.
While Ms Ganci continues to recover, relatives might be asking how Wilson, after spending 16 years in jail, could be deported straight back to the England after his release.
Records show the
50-year-old killer spent the first two years of his life in the United Kingdom before his family emigrated.
He never took Australian citizenship, so it was easy for the authorities to put him on a plane. When he returned to London, he was not placed under control orders and he refused to sign the sex offenders register.
The attack on Ms Ganci came just three months after Wilson’s arrival back in London.
Ms Ganci said: “It is a miracle I am still alive because he was strong, and my hand, it was all cut. It still hurts me.”
Wilson was frightened off by two passers-by after wrestling with the pensioner and making her touch his genitals.
Ms Ganci said: “I was definitely thinking I was going to die.
“I knew that if he managed to get me to the ground that would be the end, so I tried to remain standing and fought with him.”
She suffered two severed tendons in her left hand and needed five days of hospital treatment. Her cheekbone was fractured.
“I’m still in pain,” said Ms Ganci. “I’ve got problem with my ear and the doctor can’t find me anything to help. I was punched so much.”
Ms Ganci said she has been forced to cut back on long trips to see her family.
“I feel strong but I feel tired,” she said. “If somebody rings the bell I don’t answer the door, and not the telephone.
“I feel scared he [Wilson] could be coming in.”
Ms Ganci is hoping her landlord will allow her to have lodgers because she admits “feeling lonely at night”.
She added: “Sometimes I am in bed at nine o’clock.”
But she has nothing but warm words for the police who helped her.
“The law is the law – they can’t arrest him if he hasn’t committed a crime,” said Ms Ganci. “But the record should come to the police, so they know these things.”
What the police did know was that Wilson had shacked up in a pub in east London.
They were also given information about his past crimes.
He had been released early on a licence from a 10-year sentence for rape when in 1992 he beat 68-year-old Joan Randell to death with a concrete block in Queensland.
The circumstances are chillingly similar to the attack on Ms Ganci. Wilson was released from jail in January. He learnt on Friday he is unlikely to be released again. |
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