A migrant has been jailed for seven years after raping a teenager in a park weeks after arriving in Britain on a small boat.
Stafford Crown Court was told Kurdish asylum seeker Mehmet Ogur, who was living at the Holiday Inn Express in Tamworth, Staffordshire, forced himself on the 18-year-old victim last January.
He met the woman in a park after they had been speaking over Snapchat and raped her, police said.
The 27-year-old later sent her messages amounting to a “full and complete” admission, the court heard.
He was understood to have arrived in Britain on a small boat weeks before the attack.
Ogur, who is a trained veterinary technician, was found guilty of rape and attempted rape at a trial last summer.
He had denied any wrongdoing and claimed Google Translate had altered the meaning of the messages.
The rapist was sentenced to seven years in prison at Stafford Crown Court today.
Stafford Crown Court was told Kurdish asylum seeker Mehmet Ogur forced himself on the victim last year
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PAPassing sentence, Judge John Edwards told Ogur, who was assisted in the dock by a Turkish interpreter, that the rape had caused “immense harm” to the victim.
The judge added: “Your continued stay in the United Kingdom will be for others to determine, not for me.”
Judge Edwards accepted that Ogur was “plainly a man of intelligence” who had witnessed extreme violence before being “grabbed from the middle of the sea” and arriving in Britain.
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.
Ogur claimed messages he sent to the woman a day after the offence were not admissions of guilt.
One of the messages, the court heard, read “I am really sorry, I didn’t actually want to do this but I couldn’t stop myself” while another stated “I am sorry for trying to force you to have sex”.
The prosecutor at Ogur’s trial described the messages as a “full and complete admission” to the offences.
DC Samuel Infanti, from the Staffordshire Police rape and serious sexual offences unit, said: “The survivor in this case has shown tremendous bravery in coming forward and telling us about what happened.
“It is because of her bravery that Ogur will now be punished for his crimes.
“We’re determined to act robustly against those responsible for sexual offences in Staffordshire and to support survivors as much as possible.”
The Holiday Inn Express in Tamworth was set on fire and damaged by rioters in August 2024, days after the Southport dance class stabbings.
Several people were later jailed for their parts in the disorder.