Peterborough rape victim 'can't sleep' after attack

Detectives were able to use DNA the boy left on the victim

A woman has spoken of how she struggles to sleep 18 months after she was threatened at knifepoint and raped.

The woman in her 20s was attacked in Peterborough. A 16-year-old boy was convicted of rape and sexual assault, and is yet to be sentenced.

The case will feature in the first episode of the latest series of 24 Hours in Police Custody on Channel 4.

"When I was sleeping, I saw the abuse, that knife, and I'm shouting to my mum," the victim told the programme.

Speaking about the attack for the first time, she said: "When I remember that day, thinking about it better, I would choose the knife actually.

"I want that guy to feel what I had to feel."

Channel 4's 24 Hours in Police Custody will show how Det Con Denise Brown, pictured, and her team caught the victim's attacker

The woman, in her 20s, was attacked near Rhubarb Bridge in the middle of the day on 30 September 2017.

Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit said the teenager threatened her with a knife before demanding she went into nearby bushes where he raped her.

Detectives traced the boy through DNA left on the victim, even though they had no DNA match on the national system.

A jury convicted the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in November.

Det Ch Inp Adam Gallop worked on the arrest and convicted of the boy

The boy, who was not fit to stand trial, is currently the subject of a hospital order which is due to be reviewed next month.

Two cold case rapes that happened in Luton in late 2007 will also feature on the opening episode of 24 Hours in Police Custody.

Taxi driver Shipu Ahmed, 35, was jailed for 22 years in June after DNA evidence linked him to the unsolved cases.