Olympic Dreaming Ch. 03

"Please release the woman and step to the side," he told me.

"Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" the woman screamed.

"I won't, don't worry," I told her. "We'll just wait here until a female officer arrives, okay?

"Is that alright, sir?" I said to the police officer. "When she arrives, I'll let go of her."

I turned to the girl in my arms, "What's your name? My name's David."

"Naomi," she whimpered, "My name's Naomi."

"Well, you're safe now. The police are here, and it's all over." I gently stroked the back of her head as she held me tight, still sobbing. More police arrived, including two female officers, who came over to Naomi and me.

"Naomi, you can let go now. These nice officers will take care of you," I quietly told her.

She looked around and saw them and then reluctantly let go of me and went over to one of them and held her. Some paramedics had arrived, and one came to attend to Naomi while others started looking at the four men on the ground.

"Some will probably have fractured or broken ribs and limbs, and that one has a dislocated arm," I said to them.

The two officers who had arrived first then came over to me with a paramedic.

The paramedic examined my arm and bandaged it, telling me, "You'll need some stitches on this later, but it doesn't look too deep."

The police officer said, "We'll need to take you down to the station for questioning, I'm afraid. Did you do all this?"

"Yes, I saw what was happening as I passed the end of the alley and came to help her. They threatened to kill us both and hinted they had done this before."

He looked at his colleague. "Do you think it's the same gang that did those other women they found?"

"Let's hope so; it certainly looks like it. If we've nicked those bastards, there'll be a lot of happy bunnies back at HQ," he replied.

"I'm sorry," the first one said, holding some handcuffs, "we'll need to put these on you while we take you to the station for questioning; it's procedure, I'm sure you understand?"

"Of course, I won't object - here," I responded, putting my hands out before me. He cuffed me and led me to their waiting car. Naomi was already being taken to an ambulance, and she saw that I was cuffed. She questioned one of the WPCs with her. They explained it was routine and nothing to worry about, and Naomi smiled encouragingly towards me, and I nodded back to her, indicating I was okay.

The drive back to their nick didn't take long, and as I was only 17, they had to wait until my dad drove up as I had to have a guardian with me while being questioned. He arrived with my mum, tired, at about 4 am, and then two inspectors started asking me about the events earlier that night. They had already spoken to Naomi at the hospital with her mum and had her version of events. The four men had jumped her as she was going past the alley after spending the evening in a club with friends. They had dragged her into the alley near their van and beat her to keep her quiet before stripping her. I had arrived just before they started to rape her. I explained what I had seen and gave an account as best I could of the exchange I'd had with the men and the following fight. My dad sat beside me with a growing, shocked look as I described what had occurred.

The inspectors thanked me and revealed that they had watched some CCTV footage taken from the back of the club, which tallied exactly with what Naomi and I had told them. The four men were all in hospital undergoing treatment and had been arrested. They were probably going to go before the magistrates' court in the next few days once they were allowed out of the hospital and would be charged with attempted rape, assault, and possibly attempted murder if they could prove that last charge. Naomi had been treated at the hospital and, thankfully, had only suffered bruising and cuts to her head and torso; the mental scars would be much more profound and take longer to heal.

I told the inspectors about my trip to Singapore the following week to represent Great Britain at the Youth Olympics in Judo and Taekwondo. They hadn't heard of the event before, which, as it was only the first ever one, I suppose was not too surprising, but both exclaimed that from what I'd just done, I should be able to do the county proud. I feared they wouldn't allow me out of the country, but it was okay. I let them know my expected return date as they would probably need to question me further.

After signing my witness statement with the details of what I'd said to them, I left the room with my dad; my mum was waiting outside, looking anxious. She hugged me and cried on my shoulder at the danger I'd been in. My dad gave a brief description of the events I'd described to the police, and she looked at me and hugged me even tighter. After that, they took me back to my hotel. There was no point staying longer there, and I wouldn't need to get a train home now, so I took a quick shower, changed clothes, and met them downstairs. We set off for home, stopping at a service station near Newbury for breakfast. I treated myself to a full English as I was starving after the previous night's exertions. My dad took my hand, looked at me, and said,

"If and when you need to talk to someone about this, you can come to your mother or me anytime. I'm sure uncle Tom will also be there, or we can get help from the victim support service the police mentioned if you prefer. This will probably hit you after a few days, and you mustn't bottle it up. Talking does help. Your uncle Tom and I know former army mates who went through something traumatic, and those who sought help coped much better." He squeezed my hand, and my mum also touched mine.

"We're all there for you when you want us." She added.

I nodded and thanked them, agreeing to seek their support once I'd taken on board what had happened and it had all sunk in. The good thing was I was going to be so focused on Singapore over the next three weeks that I didn't expect to have time to reflect on it for a while.

Later that morning, I went to the local A&E to get my wound looked at and stitched. It had been a 'clean' wound, so it would heal quickly, although it might leave a scar. The next few days were spent checking that all the paperwork was in order, my kit and bags were all packed, and I kept up my training. Both my parents were joining me on the trip to Singapore, and we joined my teammates at Heathrow on Wednesday morning; we all looked very smart in our team kits, and there was an excited buzz amongst the whole Great Britain team. There were a lot of teammates from other events I'd never met, so we mingled, chatted, laughed, and then went through to the departure lounge. It was a non-stop British Airways flight to Singapore, and the flight crew were very friendly towards us, wishing us good luck and hoping they would be on the same flight when we returned to see all our medals. If we returned with medals, we wouldn't care which flight crew were with us, but this crew certainly were enthusiastic.

We landed, the pilot wished us good luck, and then we disembarked. As the doors opened, we were hit by a wall of hot, moist air, so we knew we weren't in England anymore! We collected our gear. Some of the team had large equipment bags, which they had to have assistance with, and we set off in the hired coaches waiting for us. The hotel we stayed at was very plush and much nicer than expected. I was sharing with a judo teammate; all the competitors were two to a room, and I'd known him for a long time. On Thursday, we split into small groups with our parents joining us and had escorted sightseeing trips around the city. Wow, what a beautiful place! We took many photos and selfies; the locals were polite and excited to see us all. It was a big event for them, and the locals were totally behind the games.

Friday was the opening ceremony. We marched country by country, and a large crowd clapped and cheered us all as we entered. Such a large crowd was a new experience for us all, especially those of us whose events weren't big spectator draws. After that the hosts put on a beautiful, loud and colourful show and we all danced along and got into the spirit of the evening.

My first event would be Judo in three days, so I spent the time stretching, doing light workouts and sparing with my teammates. I was one of the pre-event favourites, which proved correct as I breezed into the semifinals. That and the following final were much closer, but I triumphed! David Wilshire - gold medallist! It sounded fantastic, and my parents were jumping about and cheering.

I then had four days between that and the start of the Taekwondo event. The clear favourite was the Argentinian guy I'd lost to in Mexico, but looking at the draw, I wouldn't face him until the final if I made it that far, so I had a good chance of a silver. Over the next two days, I worked through the bouts, defeating the German guy in the semifinal. The final would be the following morning; as expected, it was against the Argentinian. He had made devasting use of his head kicks through the rounds, and I assumed he would be very confident.

Some coaches sat with me that night and got their laptops out. We reviewed the Argentinian's bouts, and then I exclaimed

"Doesn't he move his hand a certain way just before his head kicks?"

We all looked closer and watched a few other fights; he did have a 'tell' just before those kicks. All I would need to do was spot them early enough to avoid them; easier said than done.

After breakfast the following day, I went to the training area with my coach, where he did a number of those kicks to me to tune me to defend against them and then counter them when I could. The gold medal fight started with us exchanging points, and he did his signature move, catching me. I was annoyed with myself, but I had spotted the tell and knew I wouldn't get caught again. Sure enough, he tried it again; I dodged and countered with a kick to his head. That rattled him. I was narrowly in the lead now, and with one more head kick, the gold would be mine. We each traded a few more hits, none of them point-scoring, and then he tried that head kick again. Once more, I avoided it and countered successfully with another kick to his head.

The bout was over, and I was a double gold medallist! We bowed to each other and then shook hands before I jumped in the air and ran over to my coaches and teammates to celebrate. Ours was the last taekwondo event, so I watched a mixture of athletics, swimming, and gymnastics with my parents the following days. It was a wonderful experience, watching all these fellow young people at their peak doing the things they loved. The hosts again did themselves proud with a fantastic closing ceremony. It was widely accepted that the first Youth Olympics was a great success, and I was so thankful to have taken part and seen this celebration of the best of world youth.

We had the same cabin crew on the BA flight home. We took great pride and delight in showing off our medals; they treated us exceptionally well. Landing at Heathrow, actual well-wishers were cheering us all as we came through, and several journalists were asking questions. Not having done anything like that was a bit daunting; I'd only given a few interviews to the sports reporter in our local paper. Some picked on me as a double gold medallist, and I answered as best I could. A TV crew from the BBC asked me a few questions; I just hoped I was coherent and didn't come across as a complete idiot. Interviews completed, we headed home to a well-deserved rest.