Statement by Ms Joanne Rowland, student at Wolfson College, taken by DC Andrew Lepage

I was walking back to my room in college from visiting a friend at St Catherine’s College. I went across the Parks, because that is the shortest way. I went along the path that goes straight across the parks from St Cross Road to the alleyway to Norham Gardens. I was about half way when something tripped me up and I fell to the ground. The next thing I knew someone was leaning over me and holding on to me. I could smell alcohol on his breath. I panicked and tried to push him away. I think I screamed out at him to get off me, but I may just have wanted to scream.

I did not notice the man, whom I have now been told is Michael Lambert, until after he tripped me, but afterwards I saw a bench next to the path, right by where I’d fallen. I think he must have been sitting on the bench and when I went past, he put his foot out and tripped me up. I had never seen him before, but one of the people who came to help me said that they had seen him sitting there before and that they always used a different path when they saw him there because they did not like the look of him.

Two young men ran over. They were in running kit. I found out afterwards that they were called Mark Sanders and Thomas Caldwell and they were running in the Parks as part of their training for the Oriel College rowing team. They must have seen that I was in trouble. When Michael Lambert saw them, he got up and ran off. I think he was kneeling down beside me before that. There were other people coming to help by then, so Sanders and Caldwell ran after him.

Someone helped me up, and someone else picked up my phone, which had got kicked under the bench. I sat down on the bench. I had a bag over my shoulder with my purse in it. Someone saw it was open and told me to check it. I looked inside and saw that my purse was gone. People started looking around under the seat and in among the bushes for the purse.

Someone must have phoned for the Police because a police officer in uniform came up and asked what had happened. I started to tell him, but then Sanders and Caldwell came back holding Lambert between them. They told the police officer that they had caught him as he was running away. Someone said something about my purse and the police officer asked him if he had taken it. He seemed to know Lambert quite well and used his first name when he spoke to him. Lambert muttered something. Then the police officer said he needed to search him, but before he could do it someone shouted from over near the bushes by where the path crosses the other path, the one that goes along the back of the houses in Norham Gardens. One of them ran over to us and said that they had found a purse in the bushes. They said they had not picked it up in case it had fingerprints on it.

Some more police officers came and one of them showed me the purse. It was mine. I cannot remember how much money was in it, but I think it was still all there.

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