West End businesses, have started walking female employees to their cars after a woman was brutally raped in the area.

According to reports in the Brisbane Times, police are searching for two men believed responsible for the attack on the woman, 20, after she left a private function at West End’s Uber nightclub last Friday night.

The woman walked along Boundary Street and Melbourne Street on her way to catch a bus and was approached by the two men at about 11.30pm at the intersection of Melbourne and Manning streets and forced into a nearby alleyway, where she was raped.

Inspector Rod Kemp described the attack as the “most aggressive” rape he had seen during his years in service and said it had resulted in major external and internal injuries.
“The investigators are wondering if they have done it before because they seemed so well-orchestrated and the violence they used, well animals don’t do that to each other do they,” he said.

Police do not have any leads about who the men were or where they had come from.
The brutal attack has shocked the local West End community. Owners of Greek restaurant Orexi on Melbourne Street, Chris and Maggie Dimis, said the attack had heightened safety concerns. “A lot of our workers just walk home at night, or just walk to the bus. So this has worried us,” Mrs Dimis said.

Mr Dimis said they had been in the area for eight years and had “never heard of anything like this”.

“I just can’t believe it could happen here. We love West End, it’s safe,” he said.

Sia Cambaclis, 16, who lives and works locally, said the attack has deterred her from staying out at night. “Me and my friends used to come out here a lot but now I wouldn’t come here that much at night,” she said. “A lot of people know about it and I think it’s scared a few people away.”

However, local councillor Helen Abrahams said the distressing incident did not make West End a dangerous area. “On the contrary, there are a lot of people around at night time and that is the best insurance for someone else’s personal safety,” she said.

Cr Abrahams said three reviews of the lighting in the area had been conducted in four years without finding any major concerns.
“Council’s development office and the traders have undertaken three audits … to constantly make sure that lighting is to council’s standards and to make sure that safety is there,” she said.

Report relevant information to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au.