Friday, October 12, 2012

Pakistani asylum seeker twice refused leave to remain in UK went on to rape young clubber in back room of corner shop


A failed asylum seeker who raped a clubber twice before authorities could deport him has been jailed for six years.

Pakistan-born Atiq Rehman, who was twice refused leave to remain in the UK, lured a 22-year-old woman into the back room of a corner shop and attacked her on a mattress laid on the ground.

He had led her from outside Inferno’s nightclub in Clapham, south London, with the promise of a taxi ride home before threatening to tie her up with tape while he carried out the terrifying sex attack. 

Rehman, who is 20 but claims to be just 16, illegally entered the UK early last year, Inner London Crown Court heard, but his bid for asylum and subsequent appeal were rejected by the Home Office.

When he carried out the rape he was free on the condition he reported regularly to authorities.

Judge Usha Karu said Rehman, who fled to Manchester after raping the woman had failed to report and was only found again because he carried the sex attack in the early hours of April 29 this year.

‘Your application for asylum had been rejected and you made yourself scarce and stopped signing on as you were required to do under the terms of your application’, she said.

‘It is only as a result of this that you have come to light.

Rehman, also known as Shaoib Ashraf, led the woman, who cannot be identified, to Newspoint store in Clapham Common Southside, after she became separated from her friends outside the club following a night socialising. 

‘He approached her and she mistakenly initially thought he was offering a taxi service,’ prosecutor Jeffrey Israel said.
'Mr Rehman had keys to open the metal shutters to the shop, and led her through to the back room.

 There were two mattresses on the floor, and the woman began to cry.

‘She was scared because she didn’t want to be in that room alone with the defendant.’

Enlarge Newspoint preview
Attack: Rehman led the woman to Newspoint store in Clapham Common Southside, (pictured) after she became separated from her friends outside the club following a night socialising 

Rehman starting fondling the petrified woman, then asked her to perform a striptease.
When she refused, he forced her to perform a sex act on him.

    ‘She was shouting and still crying, trying to move her head out of the way’, Mr Israel said. 'The defendant told her to stop crying and he threatened, if she did not, he would get some duct tape.

    ‘Throughout, she was shouting at him to stop, physically trying to push him away from her, and trying to escape from him.’
    The woman told Rehman she was having her period, but that did not stop him raping her again.

    ‘She told him she didn’t want to do this, and was begging him to stop’, Mr Israel told the court.

    Enlarge Infernos nightclub
    Club: Rehman had led the girl from outside Inferno’s nightclub in Clapham, south London, (inside pictured) with the promise of a taxi ride home before threatening to tie her up with tape while he carried out the attack 

    ‘Rather than stopping, he pushed her on to her back and pulled her arms. She was now struggling to get away.’

    After the rapes, which lasted around five minutes, Rehman told the woman to dress and asked her how many children she wanted to have.

    He threw her out of the shop into Clapham High Street, and she managed to get to a friend’s house in Balham where she called police. 

    The owner of the shop, Bilal Akbar, was initially arrested on suspicion of rape and later released without charge, but told detectives he had lent his keys to Rehman, who had by now fled to Manchester.

    Officers found the mattress in the back room of the shop along with a roll of duct tape.

    Rehman handed himself in to police on May 26, but initially claimed a friend was responsible and he had been wrongly accused.

    Mr Israel said he eventually admitted to having sex with the woman, but tried to claim she had consented.

    ‘He denied she was crying and shouting in anyway, and said she went with him willingly’, he said.

    ‘He denied threatening her with duct tape and claimed he couldn’t remember if oral sex had taken place.’
    He also told police he had never before had sex before this incident.

    He eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, but continued to maintain today that it had been consensual.

    Judge Karu said his crimes had been compounded by an ‘element of abduction’, the length of the ordeal, and the fact he took advantage of a woman who had been drinking.

    ‘The fear she must have experienced simply can’t be imagined’, she said.

    ‘Although the incident may well have been short lived, in terms of the two sex acts only taking a short time, it appears the complainant was in the shop for about 45 minutes.’

    She jailed Rehman, of Thornton Heath, Surrey, for six years on both counts of rape, to run concurrently, and ordered him be deported on his release from prison.


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