Two young Afghan asylum seekers in the UK have each been given custodial sentences for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Leamington Spa.
Jan Jahanzeb and Israr Niazal, both 17, pleaded guilty to the May 10 attack at a hearing in October.
During a sentencing hearing at Warwick Crown Court on Monday, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano lifted reporting restrictions on the boys’ semi following applications from media organizations including the BBC.
Deportation papers were served to Jahanzeb, He was sentenced to a term of youth detention of 10 years and eight months. Niazal, about whom the judge invited the government to recommend deportation, was sentenced to nine years and 10 months.
The Court heard an impact statement on behalf of the victim in which she said: “The day I was raped changed me as a person.
“Now every time I go out I don’t feel safe.”
She added: “We are watching [other family members] feeling crushed because they believe they should have been there or did something is particularly painful for me, even though I know they couldn’t have done anything to stop what happened.
“I hate the fact that I’m now looked at as a victim, although that’s exactly what I am.”
‘Horrible’
At the opening of the trial, prosecutor Shawn Williams said that the defendants, who each appeared in the dock assisted by their own interpreter, were unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Jahanzeb fled Afghanistan and underwent an age assessment after arriving in the UK in January, which concluded he was 17, Mr Williams said.
Niazal arrived in November last year. He was initially accommodated in Kent before being moved to local authority care in the Warwickshire area.
The rape, which happened after the victim was separated from friends in a grassy area, was described as “horrific” during legal submissions on reporting restrictions.
Mr Williams told the court that video evidence showed Jahanzeb with the victim and speaking in Pashto – Afghanistan’s official language – to call Niazal to join him.
Footage from a mobile phone recovered by the police was very distressing, said Mr Williams, adding that the victim had screamed for help but Jahanzeb had put his hand over her mouth.
He said that Jahanzeb and Niazal led the victim in great difficulty to a “den-type” area in a parkland in Leamington Spa where they attacked her.
The victim had screamed several times for Jahanzeb to let her go as she was led away.
She was later assisted by a member of the public who advised her to contact the police and stayed with her until she was safe.
Reporting restrictions
Explaining her decision to lift reporting restrictions, the judge said keeping them in place could lead to speculation that innocent people could be targeted.
“A lack of information triggers public anger and leads to the uncontrolled spread of false information,” she said.
In a further impact statement from the victim’s mother, she said: “We watch our vibrant, happy and confident daughter shrink and suffer from such bad anxiety, she is often physically ill.”
She added of the attack: “That day something broke in all of us.”
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