Victim breaks silence over rape horror

SCREAMING in agony as her attacker broke her arm, terrified Margaret Cairns felt as if she was trapped in a horrific nightmare.

Abducted at knifepoint by a violent rapist just yards from her home in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, all her instincts were focused on survival.

As the fiend hauled her from his car with such force that she heard her bones snap, the 28-year-old had to fight to catch her breath.

She told us: “He was dragging me through a field. He just kept on going and wouldn’t let go.

“I was struggling to breathe because all the mud was going in through my mouth and nose. I was covered in it. I heard my arm break again. Then he stopped, pulled me round and ripped my clothes off.”

Serial sex offender Grant McPherson, 32, last week admitted the depraved attack on Margaret.

The High Court in Glasgow heard how the sicko took a phone call from his girlfriend halfway through the assault, telling her ‘I love you’ before going on with the rape.

He is due to be sentenced later this month. His shattered victim, meanwhile, was left so traumatised she tried to take her own life.

But last night Margaret waived her right to anonymity and bravely vowed NOT to let McPherson win.

And the shop assistant insisted she’s determined to overcome her torment and rebuild her life.

She said: “I’ve hit rock bottom. I felt so low that I thought suicide was my only option, the only way out of the pain and the suffering.

“But I now realise that I was so wrong. To do away with myself would only give that b*****d what he wanted — the destruction of another human being.

“So I’ve decided to speak out now because I know there are many more women who have been in the same situation.

“I want to tell them not to suffer in silence — they have a duty not to let evil triumph.”

As sick McPherson — who admitted that he’s a menace to society — faces a lengthy jail term, Margaret told how he:

GRABBED her by the hair and bundled her into his car

FORCED her to swill Buckfast so that she’d be less able to resist

SNARLED at her, ‘You were in the wrong place at the wrong time’, and

KICKED her savagely, despite the fact she was naked and terrified, as he dumped her following the attack.

Mum-of-one Margaret still suffers horrendous flashbacks but, with the help of her loyal partner, 27-year-old window cleaner David Campbell, she is battling to put the nightmare behind her.

She said: “I have no doubt in my mind, McPherson is the devil. He is utterly evil. I hope he rots in hell.”

She was on her way home in the early hours of May 8 when the fiend — who’d only been out of prison for four months following a 10-year sentence for a previous rape — struck.

Blinking back tears, Margaret recalled: “I could hear rustling in the bushes and suddenly this guy jumped out and grabbed my hair. He held a knife to my neck and told me, ‘Get in the motor now’.

“Before I knew it, I was pushed into the passenger seat. He locked my door straight away. I was literally stiff with terror as he drove round Coatbridge, telling me to keep quiet. He had one hand on the steering wheel and held a knife to my arm with the other.

“He told me to drink from a bottle of Buckfast. I thought if I did what he told me, I’d be OK. The car stopped in the middle of nowhere. My heart was beating so fast. It was like a crazy nightmare.”

McPherson — who’d downed a bottle of Buckfast and ten cans of lager — had driven her to waste ground in nearby Airdrie. Margaret continued: “He opened the passenger door then grabbed my wrist and pulled with all his might.

“I came flying out of the car and hit the ground with a lot of force, yet he still didn’t let go. My arm broke and I screamed but he dragged me through this field.”

Her voice trembling with emotion, Margaret told us: “He started to assault me...to rape me. I felt as if I was in a horror film. It was painful — everything was in slow motion.

“Then it all stopped. I heard his phone ring. He answered it. I couldn’t believe it. He then got off me. He was saying, ‘Don’t worry baby. I’ll be home in 10 minutes. I love you’.

“I was incredulous. But I didn’t have the strength to get up. Then he hung up and started attacking me again.”

Afterwards, McPherson shoved Margaret into his car again and drove back into Coatbridge.

Margaret said: “He told me he’d done time before for rape. He said he couldn’t help it, he had dark thoughts and had to act on them.

“He told me, ‘Look, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time’. I tried to say how wrong that was but he said, ‘You don’t realise how lucky you are. You’ve had a good life. I have a daughter and I didn’t see her until her 13th birthday’.

“You can’t reason with that. It was clear he was a maniac.

“Suddenly, he screeched to a halt at a roundabout close to my house. He came round, dragged me out and kicked me up the road. I was naked and covered in mud but I just ran until I got home.

“David nearly died when he saw the state of me. All I could say was, ‘My arm’s broken, my arm’s broken’.”

Within 20 minutes of the attack in May, Margaret was with doctors and officers from Motherwell police station who showed her mugshots of 13 sex offenders. McPherson was first on the list.

She recalled: “I was stunned. But the cops weren’t. They told me not to worry, that they would get him.”

McPherson had tried to escape by driving to Perthshire but was quickly tracked down. Yet Margaret’s ordeal was far from over.

She said: “I couldn’t leave my house and I was in tears constantly.

“Whenever I heard my doorbell, I’d hide and have a panic attack, thinking he’d come after me.”

The pressure came to a head just before Margaret was to give evidence against McPherson in court.

She explained: “I couldn’t cope. I got a kitchen knife and slashed my wrists. David saved me. He came back from the shops and phoned an ambulance. I woke up in hospital.

“David made me see how important it was to get this guy locked up.”

McPherson, who was sentenced to ten years in 1998 for raping a teenager and sexually assaulting her 17- year-old friend, bleated that he couldn’t handle life outside.

But Margaret is furious that he was allowed out at all. She said: “He shouldn’t have been free to get hold of me. Too much is said about human rights. What about MY rights?”

And Margaret said: “It’s important for people to know that I’ve been through hell but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“I don’t know how long it will take but I WILL get my health back. Most importantly, I want every woman out there who’s been raped to know they’re not alone.

“If somebody is helped by my story it will be better than any medicine that a doctor can give me.”