Pervert's first victim speaks of her horror

The victim says she was tormented by Clive Sharp, who targeted her in a series of sick phone calls.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said that she froze in terror when she heard Catherine's tragic story.

She was the victim of Sharp's first deviant crimes when he was 17.

"He would ring me up – I don't know how he got my number – and he would ask what I was wearing and say all sorts of twisted things.

"I was terrified, because these calls would always happen when my husband was out. He would tell me to come to the window, so I was afraid I was being watched.

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"The calls went on for weeks. I didn't know what to do because he just wouldn't stop, so the police traced the calls and caught Clive Sharp.

"The police told me that he had been targeting another woman as well. I think he got a telling-off.

"Maybe if the police paid more attention his crimes wouldn't have progressed.

"Then a year later I heard he raped a girl. I was sickened; he was just evil."

When a friend later told her that Sharp was a suspect in Catherine Gowing's murder, she froze in terror.

"I was shocked at first, but when I got over the initial fright I thought, 'Yes, why wouldn't it be him?'."

Asked today what her reaction to Sharp's sentence was, the woman said she was "relieved, to be honest".

"I said to myself all along that he raped Catherine before he killed her, but I was still very sad to hear that that is what came out in court. I'd hoped I would be wrong," she said.

hnews@herald.ie