Muslim Raped Homeless Woman

From Cambridge News Online:

HOMELESS woman was raped as she tried to sleep rough next to public toilets in a Cambridge park, a court heard.

Riad Rezzaz, 27, is accused of raping the woman - then in her fifties - as she spent the night on Jesus Green after being thrown out of Jimmy's Night Shelter.

Cambridge Crown Court heard how Rezzaz was arrested in December 2008 - more than two years after the alleged rape in August 2006 - when he tried to enter the UK using false papers.

A full DNA profile was taken and was found to match samples left on the victim's clothing. Rezzaz admitted to having spent time in Cambridge around the time of the incident, but has pleaded not guilty to the offence.

The incident is alleged to have taken place at dawn as the victim was sorting out her belongings in her suitcase. A man cycled towards her and offered her a cigarette, before trying to kiss her and forcing her to the ground, the court heard.

The victim told the court: "I said 'Please stop', and 'What are you doing?' Then I started to yell out for help to see if anyone could hear me."

But Lindsay Cox, prosecuting, said Rezzaz had replied: "There's no point in screaming, no-one can hear you."

After the attack, he got back on his bike and left the woman "stunned, shaken and not quite sure what to do", the court heard.

The victim added the attack had been "very painful" due to her arthritis.

Mr Cox told the court that the odds of the DNA having come from someone else were about "one in a billion".

After initially denying all knowledge of the incident, Rezzaz claimed he had paid a woman he met on Jesus Green for oral sex, but insisted it had been consensual.

Michael Magee, defending, said the woman, an alcoholic, was drunk and had given her consent, and that she initially told police the incident had occurred three days earlier.

Mr Magee said she had been thrown out of Jimmy's Night Shelter due to her behaviour.

He also told the court that she had a history of sexually inappropriate behaviour to male outreach workers after suffering brain damage in an accident years earlier.

In response, the victim said: "No, definitely not."