Horror as woman raped by Syrian refugee in UK beach toilet

A man has been jailed after raping a 19-year-old woman in a popular UK seaside resort. Mohammed Abdullah, a 19-year-old refugee from Syria, attacked the woman after offering her a ride home on the back of a hired bike late at night. He received a prison sentence of six years and nine months.

Abdullah stopped at a portable toilet on the promenade in Bournemouth, Dorset, and dragged the drunken and vulnerable victim towards it. He sexually assaulted her before he bundled her into the loo, locked the door and raped her. After the attack, he cycled back towards his friends on the prom. The victim, now 20 years old, flagged down a stranger and used his phone to call her mum and told her, 'I've been raped.'

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Abdullah, from West Drayton, Middlesex, denied that he had raped the woman and claimed they had consensual sex. He had come to the UK in 2023 under a family reunion scheme and was granted permanent leave to remain. He was found guilty of both charges by a jury on May 15 after an eight-day trial at Bournemouth Crown Court.

In jailing him, Judge Robert Pawson told Abdullah he was a 'sexual predator' who 'knew precisely what he was going to do' when he saw his victim in a 'vulnerable' state.

The attack happened in the early hours of July 6 last year.

The victim was on a night out in Bournemouth with a friend before they went their separate ways.

It was only then that the victim realised her phone had died, and she had no way of ringing a taxi, so she decided to walk home along the prom.

She then encountered Abdullah and his friends and asked if she could look at maps on one of their mobile phones to see where she was going.

One of the group said Abdullah, who was aged 18 at the time, would give her a ride home on the bike. The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court during the trial that she whimpered like a 'puppy dog' and was crying during the attack.

"I told myself something is going to happen here," she said. "I remember being pinned. I tried to fight a little bit. I couldn't really do anything; I was in shock. I was whimpering like a puppy dog.

"He said 'you like', obviously I said no, but he wasn't listening. When I realised I wasn't going to be able to go anywhere, I just gave up. I was just hoping it was going to be over.

"People walked past, I heard people, I tried to say something but nobody paid any attention. I thought just get through this and then you can get out of here and get help."

The victim said she was vulnerable because she was drunk at the time. "I feel if I had been sober, it wouldn't have happened," she said. "I would have been able to protect myself more, push him off me more."

She broke down in tears as she read her harrowing victim impact statement in court. She said she has suffered 'panic attacks' since the incident and has a recurring nightmare where she ends up trapped in the portaloo. Her ordeal has left her afraid to go out alone and 'petrified of all men'.

She said that she has been diagnosed with PTSD as a result of the incident, and that she has considered taking her own life. "Before this, the beach was always my favourite place to go," she added.

"Now, when I go there, my chest feels tight, and I can't breathe. I have flashbacks to that night, and I can feel him breathing on me, putting his hands up my skirt, and I can smell him.

"I remember the overwhelming feeling of that man forcing himself on me, and it makes me feel physically sick. You see things on TV, but you never think it will happen to you. I'm now petrified of all men and scared to go out at night.

"I have panic attacks and repetitive dreams where I'm walking down the beach, and then I meet him, and I always wake up as I enter the portaloo and the door shuts behind me.

"I have been diagnosed with PTSD and thought about killing myself."

Richard Tutt, defending, said that Abdullah was a young man of previous good character who had been studying at West Thames College and worked as a trainee barber in Hounslow. He said his client would find custody 'particularly difficult' due to his limited English and his 'difficult and deprived' background.

He said: "This is an extremely sad case which will inevitably have a very significant detrimental effect on the lives of two young people."

In jailing him Judge Pawson said: "She believed until you raped her that night that she was safe in her home town walking alone at night.

"But sadly, that night, she was at risk of an unscrupulous person and a sexual predator who took advantage of her. The impact of your behaviour is that your victim is unwilling to return to her favourite place, the beach.

"She has flashbacks, smells trigger her, she doesn't go out, she's fearful, she's petrified of men. She was vulnerable, her panic attacks have come back, she has PTSD, and she has suffered from suicidal ideation.

"The one thing you might have done if you had a showed a shrewd of decency was to plead guilty but you put your victim through the ordeal of a trial."

He said that while Abdullah maintained his innocence, he found his evidence during the trial to be 'nonsense' and 'poppycock', as well as demeaning to the victim.

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