How police hunt for rapist went from Leeds to Slovakia By Alex Moss & Lauren Potts

BBC News Published duration 20 October 2015

image copyright West Yorkshire Police image caption Zdenko Turtak had lived in Leeds for various periods in the four years before the rape

Zdenko Turtak has been jailed for brutally raping a woman at a bus stop. BBC News looks at how the investigation took police from Leeds to a village in eastern Slovakia.

An 18-year-old woman had been standing at a bus stop on the evening of 6 March when she was dragged behind a hedge, bludgeoned over the head 18 times with a rock and raped.

The ruthless attack in the front garden of a house in Beeston lasted eight excruciating minutes - all of it captured on CCTV - before the man responsible walked away and left her for dead.

A manhunt was immediately launched and with a full DNA profile, footage of the assault, and the stone used to club the teenager as evidence, West Yorkshire Police had several good leads.

But despite this, detectives initially drew a blank.

image caption The whole attack was captured on private CCTV overlooking the garden

Det Sup Nick Wallen, who led the investigation, said: "The fact the whole attack was caught on CCTV gave us a really disturbing insight into the type of offender we were dealing with.

"The longer he remained out there, the deeper our concerns grew that he could strike again. We knew we had to do everything we possibly could to get this man off the streets at the earliest opportunity.

"We had a fairly detailed physical description of him from the victim; we had a footwear mark for the type of trainers he was wearing; we had other CCTV of him arriving at and leaving the scene and then later very clear images and witness accounts of him stalking other women in the city centre.

"Despite this seeming abundance of material and a very high profile media focus on our appeals for information, we got back very little useful information into the investigation."

Officers visited 2,600 addresses as part of the investigation in the weeks that followed the attack and took 620 DNA swabs from men matching the rapist's description.

A BBC Crimewatch appeal aired featuring chilling footage of the man stalking three other women in the hours leading up to the rape, which prompted a wave of new leads.

In the meantime, a fortnight after committing the assault, Zdenko Turtak fled the country for his former home in Slovakia.

image copyright West Yorkshire Police image caption A geologist was consulted by police to see if it could be established where the stone used in the attack came from

The investigation become an international manhunt with police checking the suspect's DNA on databases in other countries.

They had pinpointed Slovakia as a potential country of origin for the offender and a DNA sample provided by local police in May confirmed Turtak was the man they were looking for.

Though he had previously been arrested four times for burglary and served two sentences as a youth, he had no record of committing sexual offences.

However his DNA had previously been taken in an inquiry into a burglary at the steelworks next to the Roma settlement he lived at in Velka Ida in the Kosice region.

The net was closing in on Turtak and it was while officers were working with Slovakian police they were told the drug of choice among some Roma youth was toluene - a potent chemical used in glue and paint thinners, sniffed by applying it to the sleeves of clothing.

While recovering in hospital, the victim had told detectives of a distinctive smell she had been unable to get out of her nose and mouth.

A bottle of the substance was brought back to the UK and she confirmed it was the same smell she encountered when Turtak put his hand over her mouth.

image copyright West Yorkshire Police image caption Zdenko Turtak stalked other women on the night before his attack

Through work with the Slovakian police, it was discovered the 21-year-old had returned to Velka Ida and a European Arrest Warrant was issued in June for his arrest and extradition.

On 9 July, he was brought back to the UK and charged.

It later transpired Turtak had been living in Leeds off and on for four years, working cash-in-hand jobs, mainly car washes.

At the time of the attack he was living with his brother a few minutes' walk away from the scene of the rape, but left the country after his brother had his DNA swabbed as part of the inquiry.

Det Supt Wallen said Turtak's intention was to rape that night.

His attack left the victim with a fractured skull and it is thought she was only saved from more serious injuries by the cushioning effect of the hijab and coat hood she had been wearing.