‘Streets of our city are safer‘ as rapist is jailed for 18 years after six weeks of terror
PREDATOR WENT OUT ON HIS BIKE LATE AT NIGHT LOOKING FOR VICTIMS
A JUDGE told a court “the streets of Derby are safer” after he jailed a rapist for almost two decades.
Muhammed Jan raped two sex workers and sexually assaulted two more during a six-week reign of terror in Normanton.
The 25-year-old would cycle around and solicit their services in areas where prostitutes are known to operate and then subject them to horrific abuse.
And even after being found guilty by a jury, Jan, who fled Afghanistan to come to Derby, still maintains his innocence.
Jailing him for 18 years at Derby Crown Court, Judge Jonathan Bennett said: “You have a distorted and abusive view of sex workers and I conclude that you are dangerous.
“Both the psychiatric assessment and a pre-sentence report conclude you pose a high risk to women working in the adult sex industry.
“You pinned one of them down in a bear hug and there was an element of degradation. You treated another (victim) like a piece of meat and a third was screaming for help. The streets of Derby are safer as a result (of your conviction).”
A near two-week trial towards the end of 2020 heard how went out late at night on his bike and approached the victims looking to pay them for their services. But when he got alone with them he would either rape or sexually assault them. Derby Crown Court was told how the women were vulnerable and some struggled to even want to give statements against the attacker. But they were persuaded to and to attend court and give their evidence by the policing team which in December was praised by Judge Bennett for snaring the rapist, of Nightingale Road.
After hearing the evidence, a jury took less than four hours to find Jan guilty of two counts of rape, one of attempted rape and three counts of sexual assault against four different sex workers in the latter part of 2019.
One of his women he attacked bravely attended the sentencing hearing remotely over a link and read her own victim impact statement.
She said: “I know he can’t hurt me any more but this has had a big impact on my life. He’s a terrible man, he’s disgusting, but what happened in a way helped me because it has stopped me from working on the streets because I am too scared to do anything like that again. “I don’t go anywhere anymore on my own without someone with me.” Another of Jan’s victims sat in court to see her attacker sentenced while also over the link was Deputy Chief Constable of Derbyshire Police, Kate Meynell.
The trial heard how Jan, who had denied the charges and was assisted by a Pashtu interpreter, would solicit the services of the women in Normanton before raping or sexually assaulting them. After being charged with two
Judge Jonathan Bennett counts of sexual assault police issued a plea for other workers to come forward if they too, had been attacked by Jan.
In total four women bravely did so, two saying he had raped them. The offences all took place close to Arboretum Park, Normanton Road and other areas where sex workers are known to operate in Derby, between October 27 and December 2, 2019.
Andrew Vout, mitigating, said: “There are two full and unflinchingly frank reports about this man who maintains his innocence. He has fled from a repressive regime (in Afghanistan) where attitudes towards women really could not be further from this country.
“This is a man who is in a very different society to his own struggling to control his urges. This was not planned, it was opportunistic offending.”
Jan’s sentence is made up of a 14-year custodial sentence and a four-year extended licence. He will serve a minimum of nine years before he is eligible to apply for parole. He will be on the sex offender register for life.
Judge Bennett said the defendant is also likely to deported back to Afghanistan at the end of the custodial element of his sentence.
You pose a high risk to women working in the adult sex industry.