12:55pm Thursday 9th July 2009
A car salesman was responsible for a series of random, motiveless attacks on women in a seaside town over a two-year period, a jury was told today.
Adam Gall, 27, is alleged to have roamed a small geographical area of Hastings, East Sussex, to target mainly vulnerable young women, largely between 10pm and 3am.
Lewes Crown Court heard he inflicted harm on more than 10 women and girls aged from 15 to 50-plus over a two-year period from 2006 before being caught during an attack after being placed under police surveillance.
Prosecutor Christine Laing QC said the level of violence escalated over the two years, to the extent where a bottle was used on one occasion and a metal bar on another later on in the series.
The jury was told that the victims were left with injuries ranging from bruising, concussion and broken bones, and that most of them remain traumatised by their ordeals.
In her opening speech, Ms Laing said: "We say this was a series of offences where this defendant terrorised lone women and inflicted violence upon them.
"The Crown say that this defendant is a serial offender for whom the stalking of women utterly unknown to him in order to both terrify them and to attack them became a way of life."
All of the offences took place within a small area of the resort in and around Alexandra Park, St Helen's Road and the surrounding areas.
Ms Laing went on: "All of the offences, bar one, were in suburban streets. They were sudden, shocking attacks which for the victims came completely out of the blue. There is no overt motive for the attacks."
She said that "putting fear and inflicting damage" upon the victims was what Gall wanted to achieve.
Bespectacled Gall, who lived with his parents in Pilgrims Way, Hastings, denies 14 counts, including sexual assault, assault by beating, wounding with intent, and a number of other assault charges.
Ms Laing said four people picked Gall out as being the attacker, but most victims were unable to identify him because he often made a concerted effort to hide his face with his hands.
Jurors heard that the only criteria for Gall when picking his victims was that they were a lone female or with another female and that they should be within a certain localised area of Hastings.
Unmarried Gall "stalked and actively toured" the Alexandra Park and St Helen's Road parts of the town in various motor vehicles looking for suitable victims, Ms Laing added.
Although there was a sense of fear that a serial attacker was on the loose in Hastings, it was not until June 2008 that the offences were formally linked and the case passed to Sussex Police's major crime branch.
Ms Laing said the offences were committed by the same offender, "linked by distinctive shared features" and that there was a "compelling body of evidence" that one offender committed the attacks.
The "shared features" included the area where the attacks took place, the pattern of timing, invariably the attacks happened between 10pm and 3am, the sudden approach by the attacker and evidence that he firstly stalked them in a vehicle.
In addition, it was said there were consistent descriptions of the attacker, with more than one victim or witness describing to police that he wore a baby blue jumper.
"The Crown say that when the detail of the linked features are considered the similarities are such that you will be drawn to the conclusion that the same person committed these offences," Ms Laing told jurors.
The first of Gall's alleged crimes in August 2006 appeared to be an isolated incident and the woman was only able to give police a general description of her attacker because he approached her from behind.
The second incident, in February 2007, happened as a woman was walking her dog in Alexandra Park. No attempt was made to steal anything and, again, the incident seemed to be an isolated one, the court heard.
But Ms Laing said that some six weeks later a young woman who was with her friend was struck in the face in an unprovoked attack in the early hours in Elphinstone Road.
No link was made at the time to the previous crimes but Ms Laing said the incident bore similar traits to the attack on the first victim. Ms Laing also said it was reported the attacker had a distinctive way of holding his arms out.
Another six weeks later and another woman was attacked by being punched in the face as she walked along Clive Avenue just after 1am, which she described as "if she had walked into a lamp-post".
Further attacks took place and the level of violence used was increasing, the court heard. One woman was struck in the face with a bottle in Priory Avenue after Gall allegedly approached her by simply saying "Excuse me".
In a further incident, as a woman made her way to her boyfriend's house, the attacker approached and said "Sorry if I made you jump" before hitting her round the head.
The series of attacks continued up until the point when Gall was "caught in the act" during an attack on a woman in August 2008 after he had been placed under police surveillance.
Ms Laing said that during their operation on Gall, police witnessed him driving aimless routes of the area where the incidents took and showed particular interest when he spotted lone females.
Gall, who worked for a car dealership called St Leonards Motors which gave him access to different vehicles, was tackled to the floor during the attack on the last victim and was arrested.
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