I hate to break this to you DS Babbage but no one believes you any more. Men of immigrant heritage, especially men of immigrant heritage who follow the Islamic faith are over-represented in the rape and violence against women and girls community. And we know it. But well done getting a conviction at last.
The other case I am following is still continuing at the same court; according to this I am allowed to say it is on-going, but no more. I know no more as the Bristol Post is not permitted to report proceedings.
From the Bristol Post.
Detectives who prosecuted a group of young Afghan men who raped a girl one of them met out Christmas shopping in Bristol have praised the victim’s ‘incredible bravery’ – but sent a message to anyone who might use the horrific crime for a political agenda.
The woman who helped put the gang behind bars said cases like the one heard at Bristol Crown Court last week were not confined to one religious or ethnic group despite “more and more of these cases coming out in the media”.
DS Joanna Babbage made it clear that the most important factor in the case, which heard how a 17-year-old girl was raped by three young men and a teenage boy at a house in St Werburghs, wasn’t their nationality, their race or their religion – it was “deep-set misogyny that [exists] across all communities”.
The four were convicted last week of raping the victim on one night in November last year at a house in St Werburghs, with the jury hearing a case that is every parent’s worst nightmare as the girl was befriended by a predatory stranger during a shopping trip.
The victim was 17 at the time last November, when she travelled into Bristol to go Christmas shopping at Cabot Circus with a friend who is the same age. They were approached by a young man, Mehrab Safi, who chatted them up and managed to get the girl’s number and later linked up with her on Snapchat. Within minutes the texts began, within days came the request for nude photographs.
“I describe it as the love bombing situation – this is a young girl that’s encountered this man in Bristol and it’s very quickly, within moments, within that day, and then the preceding days it’s escalated into him seeing their relationship as boyfriend, girlfriend, saying that he loves her,”
Five days later, 21-year-old Safi persuaded her to leave home in Somerset late at night and get into a taxi he sent to pick her up. The court heard CCTV showed the girl walking hand-in-hand with Safi. “There’s no doubt, she thought she was visiting her new boyfriend or potential new boyfriend,” Ed Hetherington, prosecuting, told the jury during the trial.
At the house in St Werburghs, all four plied her with cigarettes and vodka, and, first Safi raped her twice, and then she was raped by two 19-year-olds, Awal Ahmadzai and Salman Habibkheil, and a 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named because of his age.
She believed she had shared consensual sexual intercourse with Safi, the court heard, but only the first time and “not the second”. . . police effectively rescued the girl from the situation.
The three older men escaped out of the back door and ran off, and made it all the way to Dover, where – three days later – they hid inside a lorry to escape out of the country. They were discovered by French police on the other side of the Channel, and returned to police in Kent, who ran checks on them and realised they were wanted by police in Bristol.
DS Babbage expounds at length about misogeny and how to report sexual assault (although it’s only a minority of cases – nothing to worry about) and what to expect once it’s reported…
The Avon and Somerset Police website does have some hard facts – I prefer facts.
The four Afghan nationals were all subsequently charged with the following offences:
- Safi, of St Werburghs, whose self-defined ethnicity is “any other Asian background”, was charged with two counts of rape and one count of arranging or facilitating the travel of a female with a view to exploitation
- Habibkheil, of Lockleaze, whose self-defined ethnicity is “any other Black background”, was charged with one count of rape and one count of arranging or facilitating the travel of a female with a view to exploitation
- Ahmadzai, of no fixed address, whose self-defined ethnicity is “any other Asian background”, was charged with one count of rape and one count of sexual assault
- The 17-year-old boy, was charged with one count of rape
They all denied the offences, claiming it had been consensual sexual activity. However, the jury at Bristol Crown Court found them guilty of each offence.
They will be sentenced at the same court on Tuesday 6 October.
