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A JUDGE HAS jailed Faisal Ellahi for 13 years for raping a young woman with Down syndrome.
Ellahi (34) who is originally from Haripur in Pakistan, had pleaded not guilty last year to rape, sexual assault and having sex with a mentally impaired person at his Dublin home on 12 June 2013. A jury at the Central Criminal Court convicted him of the rape and sexual assault charges.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt said he would not suspend any portion of the sentence as he hoped Ellahi would not be in the community on release.
He said the crime, which had “carelessly demolished” the victim’s independence, was at the lower end of the upper range in seriousness.
Judge Hunt commented that the “frightening, appalling, disgusting and depraved” offence committed by Ellahi had taken away years of work in helping the woman lead an independent life.
He said this was “all blown away for a couple of minutes of instant gratification”.
The judge noted that Ellahi had been out “prowling” the streets approaching another woman at the same time his victim was returning home.
Victim impact statements
He said some of the most difficult evidence in the case was the reaction of the woman’s family members at her “dehumanised” state.
He complimented the victim’s mother on her dignity and fortitude in meeting the case and wished the family well in future as they “restore” the woman to her independence.
He added that he hoped the Minister for Justice would take every step to remove Ellahi from the country when his sentence was completed.
Judge Hunt backdated the jail term to when he entered custody.
The trial heard that the victim told a specialist interviewer that Ellahi locked the door behind them and that she was afraid he was going to stab or kill her.
“I wanted to go home but he wouldn’t let me,” she said. The woman said that at one point she panicked and started banging on the door screaming “help, Mum, help”.
Stop women to ask for sex
Ellahi gave evidence in his own defence in which he admitted propositioning many women as he walked the streets near his Dublin home. He said he would stop women and ask them to come home with him for “consensual fun”. He said he also used prostitutes.
The court heard evidence from 16 women who were approached by Ellahi in the area around the time of the rape. One women who lived across the road from him said he tried to force his way inside her home after she returned from a night out.
During his evidence, Ellahi admitted “sexual contact” with the special needs victim but denied penetrative sex and claimed that he didn’t know she had a mental impairment. He said she looked “normal” to him and that she enjoyed herself.
‘Never heard’ of the condition
He said he had never heard of Down syndrome until his arrest. He said in his native country people with mental impairments were kept at home or in hospitals and that they wore name badges to indicate they were disabled.
Ellahi moved to Ireland in 2005 where he found work as a security guard. He was unemployed at the time of the rape and spent his days walking the streets, he said.
A psychologist for the defence, Dr Rioghnach O’Leary said Ellahi came from an area of Pakistan where Sharia law was practised and where there were strict rules against physical contact between men and women.
She presented evidence that he was in the bottom 3% of the population in cognitive functioning and as a result “would have difficulty in adapting to social norms” in Ireland. However, because of time constraints, no “lie scale” testing was carried out which would show if the subject was attempting to skew the results of the intelligence tests.
The doctor also said that he showed an elevated sexual preoccupation and that he had a “singular focus on women as potential sexual partners”.
The trial heard that the woman had a mental age as low as seven in some areas and that she required supervision to do everything except wash and dress. An assessment found that she could not live independently or protect herself against serious exploitation.
The day of the crime
In the late afternoon of 12 June 2012, the woman’s mother was worried when she hadn’t returned home soon after her as expected. She was about to call gardaí when she heard her daughter banging at the door shouting “Mum, Mum, help, help, let me in.”
Gardaí were called and a massive investigation was launched. Officers canvassed the area and put out a public appeal for information which led to several women coming forward to say they had recently been approached by Ellahi.
The victim was driven around the area and was able to point out the door of the premises she was taken to. Gardaí spoke to everyone who lived in the building including Ellahi who denied any knowledge of the incident.
Over the following nights detectives kept watch outside his house. One night they observed him leaving and speaking to two 15-year-old girls in the street. When the girls walked away he began to follow them until gardaí intervened.
He was arrested a week later and interviewed four times. He initially told gardaí he regularly brought women he met on the street back to his house for sex but that he didn’t meet anyone that day. Forensic testing later matched his DNA to that found on the woman.
Afraid for her life
In her interviews the woman said she was out with her mother that day but that they became separated.
She said a man found her on the street and pushed her into a corner before saying “come with me”. She said the man told her he was going to help her before taking her by the hand to a house. “He didn’t help me,” she said.
I was confused and scared and sick.
She said he locked the door behind them and that she was afraid he was going to stab or kill her. “I wanted to go home but he wouldn’t let me,” she said.
The woman said that at one point she panicked and started banging on the door screaming “help, Mum, help.”
She said the man kissed her with his tongue and took off both their clothes before they “had sex” and he put his penis in her vagina. This hurt her, she said.
Asked by the interviewer if she knew what sex was, the woman replied that she didn’t but she could feel his penis hurting her.
She said that at one point she heard a woman come through the front door and say “I’m home, honey, I’m home.” She said she thought it might be the man’s girlfriend or wife.
She said he then walked her downstairs to the door and she went home.
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Amazing when applying for mortgage judt ticking one box either costs you or saves you for next 30 years.
Keep it where it is Mario – Those on Variable Mortgages like myself really are shafted otherwise – every time the ECB rate drops the AIB hikes up my Variable – ‘Sorry we have to in order to offset all those Trackers we agreed to’. I wonder will they be kind enough to keep the Variable where it is when the ECB rate does eventually rise ?!?! PS – begrudging admiration to those of you who chose Tracker Mortgages :)
Tracker mortgages were another disgraceful banking product promoted by the banks. The banks are now screwing variable rate mortgage customers with rates that are way above the ECB rate and did not reduce rates for these customers when the ECB did. What did our Government do about this, nothing as usual. The banks should be legally required to reduce rates when the ECB reduces rates and the banks should bear the loss on tracker mortgages, I would suggest it come out of their bonus pot for the next 100 years.
Why would the ECB act.
Inflation is rock bottom, growth is rock bottom, the Euro is overly strong crushing exports for many. Deflation threatens to turn into a tsunami.
Germany whistles, the ECB runs and barks and the rest of Europe can go hang.
Maybe you should leave the Eurozone, Ukraine is looking pretty good right now
Switzerland, Norway, Sweden & Denmark look all right. Britain doesn’t seem too bad either. Or are only comparisons to non-Eurozone countries currently in the throes of devastating civil wars due to community tensions, and in no way linked to their currencies, considered valid?
Before the Euro the interest rate for home loans stood at around 10% for the previous thirty years.
I wonder what the interest for punts would be now. Our problem is not the Euro it’s the political class that turned private capital losses into Government debt then continued by the next lot.
And do you think 10% was too high (ignoring interest rate spikes in the 80s)? What about in the early 2000s, would you say the low interest rates we enjoyed then were good or bad for our overheating economy?
Certainly not all of our problems have been caused by the Euro, but quite a few have and more will continue to be. The Euro was a bad idea, poorly executed. It might well work successfully down the road, but at present it is not fit for purpose. That said we’re in to deep to withdraw now, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start putting plans in place now for an orderly succession from the EMU when the time is right.
Before the Euro, the continent of Europe had an economic future and the ability of its constituent states to adjust in line with normal business practice. That is gone and unemployment is now a serious problem.
We are now growing again, most of Europe has no meaningful growth and the EU itself predicts no strong growth this decade.
A Europe together was a great idea, ultimately destroyed by the rush to a single currency.
Britain doesn’t seem too bad either”
– U obviously have not been following UK economy closely . UK is in debt – big time .
Yes, the UK does have a very large national debt, as does the US who I believe are currently debating raising their debt ceiling to “eye watering.” But have you not noticed how little they seem to really care, or how much less of an impact these debt levels are having on their societies than our debt is having on us? Both the US & UK have been printing money hand over fist regularly for the past few years now; high debt levels are not such a big problem when default by devaluation remains an option, and it would be an (less viable) option for Ireland if we still controlled our printing presses too.
Always felt the real problem of the property boom was the banks were allowed to abandon a lending policy for home loans linked to wages. Only allowed to borrow 2and1/2 times your salary, this more or less kept home prices linked to wages.
But low interest rates hit bank cash margins and they threw money into the system by lending by value. The Gov are there to generally think society but that generation of ministers, bankers and top civil servants were complete A€&Holes in every sense, then to cap it all they refused to tell Germany, French, English, American banks that their investments can go up or down.
It over simplification but generally that’s what happened. Stupidity and cowardice.
I don’t think the problem was the Euro, the boom started when banks were allowed to stop lending linked to wages, that automatically restricts borrowing and started lending by perceived value. Then they just threw money into the system and were encouraged by a generation of ministers, bankers, regulators who were A€&holes. Then when it imploded the Developers bank had to be saved, of course the same ministers then were too cowardly to explain to French, German English and Americans investors that their investments sometimes fall as well as rise.
Low interest from the Euro is fine you can control lending other ways but our top men were too stupid and cowardly to have that difficult chat but prefer to shift the pain to the little people.
It’s a bit simple but that’s pretty much what happened.
My rate is 0.75 now – another cut would hardly make any difference. €15 tops. Keep it Mario ;)
Thanks rub it In for us variables gettin rode
I have a Tracker as my main mortgage and a small Variable as a topup. The increases on the variable loan over the past few years have pretty much wiped out the benefit of the low tracker rates. Very glad my main mortgage isn’t a variable.
Dont you think Mario looks like a Mafiosa? Would you trust a face like that?
Only his mother
Feck ya Mario!
I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is.
This is a good thing isn’t it?
It is if you have a problems with economic growth or are in zane
Who’s Zane?
Zane must be the strange world where most of those bamkers live. The rest of us are doomed to live in the real world.
Good for variable rate mortgage holders like me anyway.
“Ahh and I thought that they’d cut it by a few percent”
The ECB rate is at feckin 0.25%.
It’s virtually fcuking zero.
They’d have to go into the minuses to make any substantial decrease.
Draghi is looking a bit worse for wear.
Those big jaundiced bags under his eyes.
Ohh the virtues of money Mario.
As another poster said Fuc* You Mario
the banks will still get their money at near 0 % – and lend it out at whatever they wish .
That’s handy after they have f#cked up this and other economies .
Draghi is just another banker gangster. The idea that he has anyone’s interest at heart – except his own and banks is ridiculous . .
have your say