A sex predator who attacked a young female stranger after she stepped out of a Perth nightclub has been jailed for 16 months.
Ahmet Kahraman grabbed his victim, a 25-year-old mother-of-two, under the arms, turned her round, and lifted her so her legs were straddling him in the “terrifying” 3am incident.
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.
A sheriff described the incident as a “serious and indeed alarming offence”.
Attack on a ‘vulnerable stranger’
The sheriff, Simon Collins QC, added: “But for the fortuitous intervention of the police the assault on the complainer may have progressed further.
“Even so, it has had a significant effect on her mental and emotional wellbeing.”
He said it had been an attack “on a vulnerable stranger, in a city late at night”.
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.
They found the 23-year-old father-of-one holding his victim 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, who “slumped to the ground, absolutely distraught”.
Kahraman initially told police she was “his girlfriend”.
He was arrested after she retorted: “He’s some random.”
Victim’s evidence
The woman, a bar supervisor, told Falkirk Sheriff Court she had been out with a friend to the Ex Servicemen’s Club in Perth before going onto The Loft club 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 okay. I felt like he was directly behind me.
“I said I was fine and just needed a minute.”
But 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.”
She told the court that she heard police voices mid-way through the assault.
She said: “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.”
Said ‘bad things will happen’ to victim
Kahraman 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.”
The incident occurred on June 8th, 2019.
After a three-day trial last month, a jury of 10 men and five women took less than 40 minutes to find him guilty.
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.
The court heard that Kahraman had told social workers preparing a pre-sentencing report that “bad things will happen” to the woman following her evidence.
Mr McCluskey said this had “not been a threat”.
He claimed Kahraman “meant something in the order of karma”.
In addition to the 16 month jail term, Kahraman was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.
