Woman raped in rush-hour abduction after rush-hour dragged

Two rapists snatched a terrified woman at knifepoint from a telephone kiosk as she dialled for help, dragged her across six lanes of rush-hour traffic and subjected her to a two-hour sex ordeal in a park.

The 24-year-old woman was attacked shortly after leaving work at about 5pm Wednesday evening to meet her husband near by. She became aware she was being followed in Great Portland Street, central London, and telephoned her office.

Colleagues offered to send someone to meet her, but the men hauled her out of the kiosk at knifepoint and forced her across Euston Road and into Regent's Park. In the rush-hour traffic, a woman in a small red car even manoeuvred around her and the men.

The victim was taken to the park's Inner Circle, not far from the Open Air Theatre where there was a press night for A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She was raped by both men, indecently assaulted and her shoulders and arms were cut with the knife. She lapsed in and out of consciousness during the two-hour ordeal, having been hit over the head. The men eventually made off, taking her handbag which contained cash and credit cards.

The woman, from east London, wandered around dazed for some time before she was found by another woman and taken to a nearby police station. She was treated for lacerations, other minor injuries and shock.

Acting Det Chief Insp David Ryan said that police were checking companies' security cameras in the area in the hope the men may have been caught on film. Detectives also want to trace the woman driving the red car, the woman who found the victim and took her to the police station and any witnesses who may have been attending the theatre performance.

The first attacker was described as black, 5ft 7in tall, in his mid-twenties, slimly built and unshaven with a bad complexion. He was wearing dark blue cords and a black jacket. The second was Asian, 5ft 9ins tall, in his early twenties and broadly built. He was wearing light denim jeans and jacket.