The fear factor !

This week a seventeen year old girl was forced off a Sydney train and raped in a station toilet.  The fact that this happened in broad daylight on the busy inner city line has brought public outrage and a demand for more police and Transit officers to patrol the rail network.

There will never be enough security people to absolutely guarantee safety on the rail system.  On that same day, hundreds of thousands of other passengers travelled by train without incident.   This complete stranger was the other occupant of a carriage with the girl and struck up a conversation.  When the train stopped at Strathfield station at 1 pm he forced the victim  to leave the carriage and took her to a disabled toilet on the platform - and there she was subjected to a rape ordeal that took half an hour.

Immediately he departed she alerted station staff and security swung into action.  Train carriages and rail stations are covered by the cctv network and both the victim and the attacker were quickly identified.  The attacker was in handcuffs and off to a cell in a paddy waggon minutes later.

These events will play out in a law court when the offender faces a judge.  Rape is a horrible crime, feared by all women.   Some will contend that the victim should have screamed and resisted but this ignores the disabling influence of fear - and in the past week a story had circulated about a woman someone tried to abduct - and whose screams were ignored by others.    It follows that this was a fake and designed to attract media attention - but it certainly could have had an influence on this victim's state of mind.

Perhaps the most pertinent benefit arising from this crime is the swiftness and certainty of retribution. Being alone in an otherwise vacant carriage with a victim presents opportunity - and the illusion of safety for the offender.   Sheer economics limit the number of security people who can be tasked with guarding the rail system, but the ubiquitous camera eye is everywhere these days - and that is now the main limiting factor to crime on the rail network.

The security system has done it's job and nabbed the offender.  Now it is up to the judiciary to ram home the the consequences for the attacker.   No doubt the defence will get out the violins and claim all sorts of excuses in the aim for a light sentence, but the two things that dissuade the criminal mind when opportunity offers - is the high risk of getting caught - and the inevitable heavy penalty that will follow.

There will always be a risk when we travel on a train.   That can never be totally eliminated - only reduced to a reasonable level of acceptance by rail passengers !