Takeaway rapist gets six years for city centre attack

Court: Man jailed for vile assault on young woman

A takeaway owner who abducted and raped a vulnerable young woman at his fast food restaurant has been jailed for six years.

Behroz Hamedi assaulted the intoxicated 21-year-old victim after she became separated from friends on a night out in Aberdeen city centre.

The 60-year-old locked her in Marco’s Fast Food in the city’s Belmont Street and molested and raped her.

A judge told him at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday that it was “an opportunistic sexual crime with a predatory component”.

Lord Arthurson said that the sex crime appeared to be “wholly out of character” but noted that Hamedi appeared to minimise his criminal conduct during discussions with a social worker who prepared a background report on him.

Hamedi, formerly of Pine Crescent Walk, Bieldside,

Aberdeen, had earlier denied raping the woman at the food premises on November 1 2018, but was found guilty after a trial.

Lord Arthurson told him: “Your defence of consent was plainly rejected.”

During the attack on the victim, Hamedi kissed her and performed a sex act on her before going on to rape her. She was incapable of consenting due to her condition.

The woman told his trial that she could not say how she arrived at the takeaway and said there was “no way” she could have consented because she was “just too drunk”.

Defence counsel David Moggach said Hamedi has always maintained that he believed the woman knew what she was doing and was consenting.

He said Hamedi, a married man, had come to the UK when he was 18 to better himself, but his parents were still in Iran.

Mr Moggach said: “He has been a hard-working man, trying to make the most of the opportunities he has had to provide for his family and himself.”

He said the offence appeared to have been opportunistic rather than planned and added: “He clearly badly misread the situation.”

Mr Moggach said that Hamedi was earlier freed on bail in November 2018 and placed under a curfew, which meant he could not work and which effectively deprived him of his livelihood.

Hamedi, who followed proceedings in court via a TV link to prison, was told he will be placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

“An opportunistic sexual crime with a predatory component”

PREDATOR: Behroz Hamedi was jailed for six years at the High Court in Edinburgh