Description
An asylum seeker who arrived in the country on a small boat raped a woman in the centre of Norwich after she left a nightclub.
Dan Tesfalul, an Eritrean who has been in the UK since 2022, attacked his victim on Rose Lane before running off when challenged by a security guard.
He was initially charged with raping the woman three times on the same occasion.
However, after he pleaded guilty to one charge, prosecutors agreed to let the other two counts lie on file.
Appearing at Norwich Crown Court yesterday, he was jailed for eight years and three months.
His sentencing came on the day Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, announced plans she said would make it harder for asylum seekers convicted of sex offences to stay in the UK.
The court was told that Tesfalul had left Eritrea seven years ago and arrived by boat in the UK in 2022.
The war-torn country, in the Horn of Africa, is home to just 3.6 million people but Eritreans have made up the fourth-largest group of asylum seekers in the UK in recent years.
As an asylum seeker, Tesfalul - who had been studying for a psychology degree in his home country - was granted leave to remain in November 2023.
At the time of the attack, in May 2024, he had been staying at the Brook Hotel in Bowthorpe, one of two hotels in Norwich used by the Home Office as a temporary home for those seeking asylum.
He had been drinking in Norwich city centre on the evening of May 2, 2024, when he spotted the victim in Qube nightclub, on Prince of Wales Road.
He bought drinks for the woman before she went to buy food. He also left the nightclub and approached her on nearby Mountergate.
Stephen Spence, prosecuting, said that although the victim was too intoxicated to remember what happened to her other witnesses saw her being raped by the 27-year-old in a grassed area near Rose Lane car park.
Mr Spence said a woman leaving the car park saw the victim on the grass with the defendant having sex with her.
The witness became concerned after she heard the woman "screaming out" and called police.
A car park security guard also realised something was wrong and after challenging Tesfalul the defendant pulled up his trousers and ran off.
Mr Spence said he was arrested in Whitefriars a short while later.
Sentencing Tesfalul to an extended sentence of 13 years and five months - eight years three months custody and five years on licence - Judge Alice Robinson told him: "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."
She said Tesfalul had "specifically targeted" the victim who was particularly vulnerable and unable to defend herself through drink.
The judge said he was an "extremely dangerous" offender who had demonstrated a "predatory sexual manner" toward the victim.
Before the sentencing, the victim read out a statement in which she said: "It was such a horrible attack when I was at my most vulnerable."
She said was now “scared of being out alone in case it might happen again”.
“I feel scared of men and feel they are out to get me and rape me too.
“It’s horrible to feel scared of every man you see when in the city and in the shops."
The victim also said she now "hates people touching me", keeps herself "hidden away" and just wants to "curl up into a ball".
Matthew Sorel-Cameron, mitigating, said Tesfalul knows the victim "will have to live with the consequences of his actions".
He said the defendant was deeply sorry and profoundly ashamed” to have caused the suffering she had.
Mr Sorel-Cameron said the defendant deserved credit for his plea.
The defence barrister said the alcohol the victim had taken made her vulnerable but insisted there was “insufficient evidence” to say him buying her drinks had been a “calculated” act to “make this offence easier”.
He said the defendant had “been out by chance at the same time” as the victim.
Mr Sorel-Cameron said Tesfalul, whose own father died while "crossing the Mediterranean in a boat when the defendant was four or five", had been studying software development at the time of the offence.
Speaking after the sentencing, detective constable Dave Block said: "I hope this conviction and sentence serves to re-enforce the message that in Norfolk, dedicated detectives investigate reports of sexual offences thoroughly and that courts take these matters seriously.
"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. “
Tesfalul was made the subject of a restraining order banning him for contacting the victim directly or indirectly for 15 years.
He was also put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.