An asylum seeker from Iran has been jailed for raping an elderly woman and sexually assaulting a child just ten months after he arrived in the United Kingdom.
Issa Brayzi-Pour, 22, an Iranian national has been jailed for 13 years by the Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester, England. The convicted rapist will serve two-thirds of his sentence before being eligible for parole, however, given that the court determined he was a “dangerous” offender”, Brayzi-Pour was given an additional five years on license, the Manchester Evening News reports.
Last summer, just ten months after arriving in the country to seek asylum from Iran, Brayzi-Pour stalked a 70-year-old woman who was walking home from a pub in Farnworth. After refusing to engage the foreign man in conversation, the asylum seeker pushed the pensioner up against a fence just steps away from her home, and raped her before “calmly walking off up the road”.
The court was told that as a result of the rape, the elderly woman had suffered from “significant and severe” psychological issues and “life-changing problems”.
Brayzi-Pour was arrested three days later after police were able to track him down using CCTV footage, with the asylum seeker being easily identifiable due to his “distinctive” clothing, which included a “dark hooded coat and slider sandals”. DNA evidence taken from Brayzi-Pour was confirmed to have matched that found from “intimate swabs” taken from the 70-year-old victim.
The Iranian national was then determined to have sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl just 12 days earlier in the same town after luring her to an isolated location. With promises of cigarettes, Brayzi-Pour attempted to kiss the girl and asked that she perform oral sex on him and when she refused he tried to pull her into the bushes, the Greater Manchester Police said.
The child said that she has “had her freedom taken away” as a result of the attack.
Prosecutors asserted that the asylum seeker had gone “out trawling the streets at night time looking for vulnerable individuals”. Brayzi-Pour, meanwhile, claimed that the sexual acts with the child and elderly woman were consensual.
The presiding judge in the case, Recorder Andrew McLoughlin, said that Brayzi-Pour’s accounting of the events “bears no relationship whatsoever” to the evidence presented to the court.
“There is no remorse shown by you, because you believe somehow that all these matters took place with the victims’ consent, they clearly did not do so,” the judge said.
Responding to the sentencing, DC Peter Hardy of Bolton CID said: “Firstly, I want to thank the bravery of both of the victims and the strength they have shown to take this prosecution to sentencing. We are happy with today’s result and are pleased that the trauma that Brayzi-Pour put his victims through has been recognised.
“Although no amount of time behind bars can make up for what the victims have been through, I hope that it will allow them to start to rebuild their lives and move on from what must have been a living nightmare. A dangerous individual is now off the streets and cannot pose a risk to any other females.
“As a force, GMP are committed to identifying and locating sex offenders to ensure that they face the full force of the law. If you, or anyone you know has been subjected to a sexual assault, we would urge you to come forward and speak to GMP.”