Traumatised Widow Raped In Her Home Dies Weeks After Seeing Attacker Jailed

A traumatised pensioner who was pulled from a mobility scooter and raped in her own home has died just weeks after seeing her attacker jailed.

Kathy Lane, a disabled 69-year-old just 4ft 7ins tall, did not fight or scream during her horrific ordeal at the hands of John Scanlon because she feared the slaughterhouse worker would turn on her beloved Yorkshire terrier, Molly.


The elderly lady, a former school crossing warden, never recovered from the sickening February attack and the ordeal of Scanlon’s trial. Petrified and bemused, she clutched a toy - a pink woollen pig - while giving evidence.

That toy will be placed in her coffin, the Birmingham Mail reports.

She lived in fear, too scared to leave her home and tortured by flashbacks of the degradation Scanlon subjected her to.

The widow died on August 19 from a stroke.

Her family insisted her death was the result of her nightmarish ordeal at the rapist’s hands.

They also requested that her name was revealed to the public after her life effectively ended when 46-year-old Scanlon stormed into her flat. 

Scanlon, from Shard End, is the shuffling embodiment of every woman’s nightmare.

Before channelling his depravity on Kathy, the monster with bulging, soulless eyes, sexually assaulted another vulnerable woman living in sheltered accommodation.

He was jailed for 42 months for that crime.

Kathy’s family had to endure Scanlon’s cruel lies, thrown out in a bid to save his worthless, tattooed skin.

When he claimed that he and disabled Kathy – a woman unable to walk, crippled by heart and lung disease were an “item” and enjoyed a consensual sexual relationship, one relative had to be restrained from rushing to the dock.

Niece Carrie Byrne, from Sheldon, said: “He killed her, we’ve no doubt about that.

Her sister, Michelle, nervously fingering photographs of her beloved aunt, said: “We refuse to call him an animal because not even animals stoop that low. Humanity is going to pot.

"If he is let out – and I don’t think he should ever be let out – I want him branded, physically branded, with what he did.”

"You may think it’s terrible, but we pray fellow prisoners will read this; we just pray the cell door will be left open.

"Kathy couldn’t even cook a meal after what he did to her.”

The pensioner suffered a massive stroke at the Horrell Road, Sheldon, bungalow she moved to following the crime.

She slipped away within hours of being rushed to hospital.

“To the day she died, Kathy carried the bruises from what he did to her,” said Michelle.