A MAN who had been hunted by police for almost 20 years for raping a woman was arrested on board a flight to Pakistan just moments before take off, a court heard yesterday (5).
Mohammed Ibrar Aslam, 47, from Sutton Coldfield, raped the woman in Halifax after she had been on a night out in 2001. She was then taken to a house in Bradford where Aslam forced her to perform a sex act.
Aslam admitted raping the woman and he was on Thursday jailed for 11 years and three months at Leeds Crown Court.
The woman said she remembered lying face-down being raped, and she felt like a "piece of meat being used." She had no idea who she was with or where she was.
"The only thing I thought I could do was become completely detached and try to ignore what was happening to me.
"I feel as though I have lost important parts of my sanity. I will always feel unclean and suffer from very low self-esteem."
Although the woman gave a statement to the police at the time, the crime remained undetected for nearly two decades.
Judge Simon Phillips told Aslam: "Effectively for every hour of every day for the past 18 years when she has been conscious the victim of your offence has been disastrously affected by your actions.
"The overwhelming expectation is that will remain in that situation for the foreseeable future."
Prosecutor Stephen Wood said Aslam was arrested on a flight as it was about to take off for Pakistan via Dubai.
"He was literally just moments away from leaving the jurisdiction," said Wood.
Wood added: “The presence of the defendant’s semen indicates that the defendant engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim at a time when she was incapable of giving informed consent.
“His guilty plea accepts that due to her intoxicated state he had no belief, reasonable or otherwise, that she was consenting.”
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