Predatory sex offender's assaults had traumatic impact on victims

Govar Abdul-Rahman, 28, was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday for sexual assaults on three women, within a three-week period in June and July 2022.

He was also sentenced after he broke into a woman’s flat as she slept naked and then returned to the address a week later.

The defendant, an Iraqi-born asylum seeker who had entered the UK illegally, carried out his first two assaults in the sauna at Queens Park Leisure Centre within three days.

Three weeks later he launched an attack in an alleyway on an 18-year-old woman, who had been on one of her first nights out in St Helens town centre.

Then Abdul-Rahman’s “escalating” offending saw him seven days later make his way into a young woman’s flat through a window in the early hours. She was awoken as she slept naked on her bed to the sight of the defendant standing over her bed.

The sentencing took place at Liverpool Crown Court

In what a judge called the “stuff of nightmares”, the same woman heard a noise and opened her curtains and saw Abdul-Rahman trying to get in into her flat again a week later.

Prosecuting barrister Trevor Parry-jones read out victim impact statements setting out how Abdul-Rahman’s crimes had affected each of his victims.

READ > Man who raped and sexually assaulted girl given lengthy jail sentence

The court heard the woman whose flat Abdul-Rahman broke into described as “vulnerable”. In a victim impact statement it was said she had previously engaged in “self harm” and that the incident had “brought back feelings and trauma I’ve spent years trying to heal from”.

It was said when “I hear a noise in the night it wakes me up” and “sends me back to that terrible night”.

It was added: “I think it will be some time before I’m ready to go to the flat”. She said “I hope m y recovery will be swift bit it is going to be a long road ahead to go to the place I was.”

Govar Abdul-Rahman (Image: Merseyside Police)

One of the victims assaulted at Queens Park said “I feel I have become a lot stricter with my daughter” and “a lot more protective” adding “I’m terrified of her walking home from school in case strangers approach her”. It was added “I don’t feel confident enough to go back to the pool and fearful of going”.

Meanwhile, the other victim of a sexual assault at Queens Park said she “hadn’t been back to the sauna since” and “I feel like I don’t trust people like I used to”.

In an impact statement, the victim of the sexual assault in the own centre said: “I don’t feel that I can trust many people like I used to. I used to feel confident and secure with myself”. It was added that she didn’t “go out as often”.  

Passing sentence on Abdul-Rahman, judge David Swinnerton said: “What you did doesn’t just cause one moment, or one evening of fear or anxiety, it takes a long time to get over the sort of anxiety caused.”

The judge added that Abdul-Rahman, 28, had “demonstrated a complete lack of boundaries” and said his offending had “escalated seriously”.

Abdul-Rahman, of Silkstone Street, Newtown, St Helens, was given an extended sentence of 12 years, seven in custody with an extra five years on licence for the attempted trespassing at the flat, with concurrent sentences of four years and four months for the trespassing and voyeurism offences.

For the sexual assaults at Queens Park he was given two consecutive four-month sentences, and a 20-month consecutive sentence for the town centre sexual assaults, making a total of 28 months.

Abdul-Rahman must serve two-thirds of the seven-year custodial term and half of the 28 months in custody.

The judge added it will be a matter for the Home Office to determine whether Abdul-Rahman is deported.