A “random” sexual predator attacked a young stranger who had just left a nightclub in Perth.
Kebab shop owner Ahmet Kahraman grabbed his victim, a 25-year-old mother-of-two, under the arms.
He turned her around and lifted her so her legs were straddling him in the “terrifying” incident near the city centre club at 3 am.
The woman, who described herself as “frozen with fear”, tried to fight him off but he pulled her deeper into a dark, covered alley and began to sexually assault her.
She was rescued after police on duty near the nightspot heard her yelling, “leave me alone, get off me” and ran towards her shouts.
They found Kahraman holding her with one hand on her buttocks and the other on her breast, as she struggled to free herself from his grasp.
When Kahraman caught sight of their hi-vis jackets, he let go of the woman.
She “slumped to the ground, absolutely distraught”.
Kahraman initially told police she was “his girlfriend”.
He was arrested after she retorted: “He’s some random.”
Prosecutor Cheryl Clark said it had been a case where police saw a sexual assault actually taking place and had caught Kahraman in the act.
Police saved woman from beast
In evidence, the woman said she had been out with a friend to the ex-Servicemen’s Club in Perth before going on to the club, The Loft, in the city’s South Street.
After going out for a cigarette she felt “queasy” and decided to leave, before going into the nearby alley to be sick.
She said: “I heard a man’s voice asking if I was OK. I felt like he was directly behind me.
“I said I was fine and just needed a minute.”
Kahraman put his arms under hers from behind and tried to pull her up from the position in which she had been squatting beside the wall.
Wiping away tears in the witness box, she said: “I turned around to try to walk away from the situation but he continued to pick me up by the legs, facing him.
“He used his hands around my thighs to pick me up around him in a straddling position.
“He was kissing me on my neck and collar bone.
“I remember feeling an erection against myself.
“He was grabbing my bum and stroking my crotch.
“Then I just remember hearing two male police officers.
“The police asked if he knew me and he said, ‘she’s my girlfriend’.
“I screamed, ‘I don’t know him’.
“This was a complete stranger – not someone I had been speaking to on the night in question.
“I was hysterically crying, frozen with fear.”
Denied guilt
Kahraman, 23, formerly of East High Street, Crieff, who said he had also been on a night out, denied sexually assaulting the woman.
He claimed: “I didn’t touch her, I just tried to help.”
After a three-day trial at Falkirk Sheriff Court, a remote jury of 10 men and five women took less than 40 minutes to find him guilty by majority.
The incident occurred on June 8, 2019.
Kahraman’s counsel, advocate Niall McCluskey, said Kahraman, originally from Turkey, was a UK citizen who had lived in Perthshire, Aberdeen, and now Cardiff, where he owns his own kebab shop in the Welsh capital.
Sheriff Simon Collins QC deferred sentence, for reports, until August 5.
Revoking bail, he remanded Kahraman in custody.
