DETECTIVES are frustrated that key witnesses who helped a deaf woman after she was viciously raped in a York graveyard have not yet come forward.

Police hoped a Good Samaritan, who helped put the 36-year-old victim in a taxi in Micklegate after the attack, would have contacted them.

They also want to speak to the taxi driver who drove her to the Huntington Road area of the city, and a male passenger already in the vehicle.

Detective Inspector Jon Reed said it was a "big disappointment" not to have heard from key witnesses since the attack, which took place on November 13.

"We would have liked to have spoken to those people by now," he said.

"Because the woman had these disabilities (deafness), we believed she would be easily recognisable to any members of the public who had spoken to her in the early hours of the morning.

"We had been quite confident those people would come forward because it's an important leg of the investigation to speak to them and I am disappointed. We would urge them to get in touch."

Police officers questioned revellers in Micklegate and George Hudson Street in York on Saturday night, a week on from the attack on the woman in the graveyard of St Martin's Church, in St Martin's Lane.

Detectives are still awaiting the results of forensic tests, which are due out early this week. An e-fit image of one of the suspects has been released and is featured as part of a city-wide Evening Press poster campaign, in the hope it will stir people's memories.

Rape support workers say much still needs to be done to improve people's attitude to the devastating crime.

Charity staff from help groups in York spoke out after a survey showed a third of people in the UK think a woman behaving flirtatiously is partially or completely to blame for an attack.

Rape counsellors in the city said many victims were still being treated with ignorance and were not given enough support.

The alarming poll also showed more than a quarter of people believe a woman is at least partly responsible for being raped if she wears sexy or revealing clothing, or is drunk. Joanna Perry, policy manager at Victim Support, which has offices in York and North Yorkshire, said: "It is alarming to read that so many people seem to believe that a woman is responsible for inviting a rape or sexual assault, because of what she was wearing, what she drank or how she behaved.

"Rape is an appalling crime and has a devastating effect on victims, and those close to them. In other words, nobody asks to be raped."

The survey, of more than 1,000 men and women, suggests a significant number of people think of rape as involving a stranger, when in fact most victims know their attackers.

Updated: 10:33 Tuesday, November 22, 2005