Mum of sexual assault victim hopes sentence will bring 'closure'

Govar Abdul-Rahman 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.

On July 17, 2022, the sex offender assaulted the woman, who had been out with friends in the town centre into an alleyway. While they were sat outside the Circus bar, the victim had said “she needed the toilet and looking for somewhere she could go”.  As she went down the alleyway the defendant followed her.

Mr Parry-Jones said that the defendant “engaged her in conversation” though “she didn’t wish to have a conversation with him”. He said to her “you’re really beautiful” and the victim replied “thanks but no”. Abdul-Rahman said to her she was “his type.”.

The defendant went on to “kiss” the victim and “she moved her cheek to one side so he couldn’t kiss on the lips”.

The woman said to him “I just want to go back to my friends” and Abdul-Rahman said: “I like you, you’re really pretty” and “pushed her against a wall”. Mr Parry-Jones said the victim said his hands went “on to her breasts and on to her bottom over clothing”. The victim managed to get back to her friends who described her as “extremely upset”.

The court was told 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.

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.

In a victim impact statement that was read to the court by Mr Parry-Jones, it was said the woman who was sexually assaulted in the town centre alleyway had been left after the incident unable to socialise as often and trust people.

It stated: “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”.  

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

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.”

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.

The mum of the woman assaulted in the alleyway welcomed Abdul-Rahman’s sentencing and that he was “off the streets” and said she hopes this will help bring “closure” for all of his victims.

She said: “As a parent I am over the moon that the sentence has been given. The victims have got justice and a step towards closure.”

She added: “I hope the sentence can put everything to bed for everybody. I am so grateful to Merseyside Police and the justice system, I cannot thank them enough.”