SHERAZ MALIK JAILED FOR RAPE OF TEENAGER IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE PARK

Sheraz Malik, an asylum seeker, has been sentenced to 10 years in custody plus four years on extended licence for the rape of an 18-year-old woman in Sutton Lawn park in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court found Malik guilty of two counts of rape in January. The attack took place on 29 June last year, shortly after the same woman was raped by an unidentified second man who was with Malik at the time. Malik, a Pakistani national previously of Bath Street in Sutton-in-Ashfield, had claimed the sex was consensual.

The court heard the woman had been drinking in the park with a male friend when she encountered Malik and a group of men she did not know. Her friend asked Malik and his associates to look after her whilst he left to meet another person. One man from the group took her to an isolated area of the park, where he raped her. Prosecution counsel Nicholas Corsellis KC told the court that Malik then took the woman to a separate secluded spot, where he struck her whilst raping her.

Sentencing, Judge Simon Ash KC said Malik had attacked the woman knowing she was heavily intoxicated and alone at night with strangers. The judge noted Malik had repeatedly called his victim "a slut" and struck her to the face and head when she attempted to resist. A pre-sentence report found Malik displayed distorted thinking regarding consent, personal entitlement, and the objectification of women. The judge determined Malik posed a significant risk to the public and had shown neither remorse nor acceptance of responsibility.