An asylum seeker in the UK has been sentenced to over eight years in prison for r*ping a woman who was so intoxicated that she had no recollection of the assault.
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 two of 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’.