Asylum seeker jailed for raping teenager in park

An asylum seeker has been jailed for seven years for raping an 18-year-old woman in a park, days after meeting her via a social media app.

Mehmet Ogur, 27, who was living at the Holiday Inn Express in Tamworth, Staffordshire, forced himself on his victim last January and later sent her a messages saying he was sorry for what he had done.

The trained veterinary technician was convicted of rape and attempted rape last summer, after denying any wrongdoing and claiming Google Translate had altered the meaning of the messages.

The trial was told he attacked the woman after consensual cuddling and kissing, during a meeting in a secluded area of a park near Tamworth town centre.

A jury convicted Ogur, a Kurd from Turkey, after hearing how the victim screamed for him to stop as she tried to struggle free.

Stafford Crown Court was told that one message he sent his victim stated: "I am really sorry, I didn't actually want to do this but I couldn't stop myself."

Another said: "I am sorry for trying to force you to have sex."

Judge John Edwards told Ogur, who is understood to have arrived in Britain on a small boat weeks before the attack: "Your continued stay in the United Kingdom will be for others to determine, not for me."

In an impact statement read to the court prior to sentencing, Ogur's victim said the attack "completely changed me as a person".

"The truth is I don't think I'll ever get through it. He completely destroyed me."

The victim, who cannot be named, added: "It's been nearly a year since you raped me but it still feels like yesterday.

"Why me, why did you choose me to completely destroy when all I did was show kindness and empathy towards you?"

Joseph McKenna, defending, told the court in mitigation that the defendant was suffering from anxiety and depression, having experienced "difficult circumstances" as a Kurd in Turkey.

Commenting after the case, Sachan Gautam, a senior crown prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands specialist rape and serious sexual offences unit, said: "This was a deeply distressing case in which Mehmet Ogur deliberately ignored the victim's clear refusal of consent.

"His behaviour escalated from unwanted advances to a violent and traumatic rape."

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