Thursday, May 1, 2025 - An asylum seeker in the UK has been jailed for more than eight years after r@ping a woman who was so drunk she couldn’t remember the attack.
According to Mail Online, Eritrean Dan Tesfalul, 27,
attacked his victim in a busy city centre after she left a nightclub and only
fled when he was challenged by a security guard.
The defendant, who arrived in the UK in 2022, bought drinks
for the woman and followed her outside when she went to get food. He then
forced himself on her near a car park in Norwich city centre.
Details of the case emerged in the week Home
Secretary Yvette Cooper revealed plans to make it easier to deport
asylum seekers convicted of sex offences.
The announcement came as it emerged the number of Channel
migrant crossings this year had passed 10,000 more than a month earlier than in
2024 and six weeks earlier than 2023.
Jailing Tesfalul for eight years and three months with
another five years on licence, Judge Alice Robinson told him he was an
‘extremely dangerous’ offender who had shown a ‘predatory sexual manner’
towards the victim he ‘specifically targeted’ as she was unable to defend
herself due to drink.
She added: ‘This was a horrific attack on a lone,
intoxicated female in the middle of the night, resulting in a number of bruises
– and deep distress.’
The woman Tesfalul attacked bravely read out her victim
impact statement at Norwich Crown Court, saying: ‘It was such a horrible attack
when I was at my most vulnerable.’
Revealing she was now ‘scared of being out alone in case
it might happen again’, she continued: ‘I feel scared of men and feel they are
out to get me and r@pe me too.
‘It’s horrible to feel scared of every man you see when
in the city and in the shops.’
Tesfalul was staying in the Best Western Brook Hotel, one
of two Norwich hotels used by the Home Office to provide temporary
accommodation for asylum seekers – at the time of the attack on May 2, 2024.
He had been out drinking when he saw the woman in Qube
nightclub on the city’s busy Prince of Wales Road.
After plying her with drinks, she went outside to get some food and he followed her before raping her near the car park.
Prosecutor Stephen Spence said although the woman was too drunk to remember what happened, a woman leaving the car park heard her ‘screaming out’ and called police.
Other passers-by saw what was happening, and Tesfalul
pulled up his trousers and ran off when a car park security guard approached
him.The defendant was arrested a short distance away minutes later.
Tesfalul was initially charged with raping the women
three times on the same occasion but twof the offences were allowed to lie on
file after he admitted one count.
The court was told that he had been studying for a
psychology degree in his home country before leaving in 2018 and eventually
arriving in the UK on a small boat three years ago.
He was granted leave to remain in November 2023 and was
studying software development when he committed the rape.
Matthew Sorel-Cameron, defending, said his client knew
his victim ‘will have to live with the consequences of his actions’ and was
‘deeply sorry and profoundly ashamed’ for the suffering he had caused.
Tesfalul’s father had died while ‘crossing the
Mediterranean in a boat when the defendant was four or five’, he added.
The defendant was placed on the s£x offenders register
indefinitely and given a restraining order banning him from contacting his
victim directly or indirectly for 15 years
Detective Constable Dave Block, of Norfolk Police, said
after the sentencing: ‘I would like to commend the members of the public who
intervened in this incident, the police officers who attended swiftly and
professionally, and, most of all, the victim who has engaged with us throughout
the investigation.’
Any offender given a jail term of a year or more, as well
as war criminals or terrorists, can be refused asylum and deported from the UK
under the Refugee Convention at present.
Ms Cooper said on Monday that the government would widen
this to include anyone convicted of a crime that led to them being placed on
the s£x offenders register in the UK, regardless of the length of their
sentence.
She said this would ‘ensure these appalling crimes are
taken seriously’ but the Conservatives dismissed the move as ‘too little, too
late’.
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