GREENOCK MAN SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS FOR RAPING SLEEPING WOMAN

A sex predator who raped a sleeping woman has been sentenced to five years in prison.Nooralhuda Yousif Al-Bashir, aged 42, was given a custodial sentence despite a pre-sentencing social work report discussing potential alternatives to imprisonment. He was convicted at a trial in Edinburgh of raping a young woman at his home in Greenock, Inverclyde, on May 29, 2022. The case was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow.During the trial, Lord Young told the court: "The jury decided you had taken advantage of her. She had fallen asleep in your bed after returning from a nightclub. When she awoke to find you having sex with her, she was so frightened that she pretended to be asleep until you finished. As she was asleep at the time, she was inherently vulnerable."The woman, who had been drinking that evening, had ended up at Al-Bashir's property following a night out with friends. She requested to lie down because she was feeling unwell. He showed her where the bedroom was, and it was there that he assaulted her. Afterward, she took a taxi home feeling 'numb'.Al-Bashir denied the crime at trial. His lawyer argued that he was a first-time offender, and expressed the view that the social work report's length and potentially misunderstood the gravity of the case. Nonetheless, the court sentenced him to five years and also ordered him to be placed on the sex offenders list indefinitely.