I received this today from Sydney Self Protection on Facebook. It is an email that was sent to him by a friend of his. This lady was VERY lucky indeed.

On Sunday I was shopping in Manchester (UK) as I approached my car I saw a man standing there and noticed my front passenger window was smashed. The guy apologised and said he saw it happen and chased 2 guys that did it but they had been too fast and gotten away. The guy then went on to ask for a lift in to the town or to the nearest train station. (Usually I would not hesitate to give people lifts, whatever I can do to help act.) But instead I told the man I didn’t let strangers in my car and instead gave him £20 to help him back on his way.

I drove straight to a mechanics to get my window sorted. The mechanic advised me to get to a police station right away as under the passenger seat he found rope, duck tape and a knife.

Something kicked in that day which made me go against my normal actions, my instinct. It saved my life.

Despite the fact that this lady was able to the spot the danger this time, it does point out a very dangerous factor. As a single lady you should never give people lifts unless they are truly in distress themselves. Even then you should consider yourself to be in the Black until you reach the required destination - which should be either Police Station or Hospital, if they don't require either, then by all means help them out by getting them a taxi and paying towards the fare.

This situation also highlights the steps that sexual predators can take. This was obviously not an opportunistic attack. By this, I mean that the man didn't act upon the moment. For example, a burglar might enter a house he thought was empty and find a woman there. He might then decide to rape her as a spur of the moment act.

This man however had what is called a 'Rape Kit. He had rope for binding, duct tape for binding, subduing and even killing (by using it to seal her mouth and nose) and a knife for subduing, torturing and killing.

He had also targeted a lone female in a car park in busy Manchester. There is no way that this could be random. Would he have attempted to kidnap another male? Most likely not. These sort of people often fantasise at length and in depth about the act they want to carry out. They can often do so for years before carrying out the act. This selection would most likely have been through careful observation. He might have been in the car park looking for lone females parking their cars and then selected her (she might have had the right colour/length of hair, be the right age, have the right skin colour etc).

This was a carefully planned ruse. He had carefully scripted what had happened to the car, and what he would say to her in order to disarm her and make her think he was a good guy. He was very confident in his approach and, unlike others, didn't appear to want to do a 'blitz' style attack.

Blitzes are often carried out by very aggressive attackers with insecurity issues. They use overwhelming violence to quickly subdue their attackers and achieve their aims. If this man was a blitzer he would most likely have attacked her from behind whilst she was getting into her car - or just about to. Then he would have driven the car himself.

However, it appears that his plan was to have her actually drive the car herself - under threat - and then make her go to a pre-planned spot.

As I said, this was one very lucky lady. Hopefully she did go to the Police and report this as he's most likely going to try this again.