Six-year sentence of rapist who trapped woman in barber shop increased after Crown appeal

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2024] HCJAC 21
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary
• Judge:
  Lord Doherty

Barzan Nawshowani was convicted of raping one complainer inside his workplace in August 2022, with a docket attached to the indictment for sexually assaulting another woman inside his car in August 2015. The Crown argued that the respondent’s culpability was higher than assessed by the trial judge and that the sentence was insufficient to protect the public and deter others from similar offending.

The appeal was heard by Lord Doherty, Lord Matthews, and Lord Beckett. The Lord Advocate, D Bain KC, appeared for the Crown and W Culross, advocate, for the respondent.

Premeditated and predatory

The complainer in the docket to the indictment, LO, gave evidence that when she was on a night out in Glasgow city centre, the respondent pretended that he was the taxi she had ordered to Alexandra Parade. Having been very drunk, she fell asleep in the respondent’s car and when she awoke, she found him committing the assault.

In respect of the rape charge, the complainer, then a 20-year-old student, was also on a night out in Glasgow with a friend, CS. CS texted the respondent, whom the complainer believed was a taxi driver, to take them home. However, after dropping off CS the respondent instead drove to his workplace, a barber on Duke Street, and encouraged the complainer to go inside with him. She did not want to go in but did so out of fear. Once inside the respondent closed the shop’s electric shutter, trapping the complainer inside with him, and proceeded to rape her.

The trial judge assessed the respondent’s culpability on the basis that there had been a significant degree of planning and noted the serious level of harm caused. However, the judge considered in mitigation his good work record, lack of previous analogue offending, and his adverse experiences arriving in the UK as an Iraqi Kurd refugee in 2008.

For the Crown it was submitted that the sentence did not adequately reflect the premeditated and predatory nature of the attack on a vulnerable young woman, the features of abduction and detention, the force used, and the harm the attack caused her. The judge also erred in treating the respondent’s experiences in Iraq as a mitigatory factor. If regard were had to the Sentencing Guidelines for England and Wales, the range for an offence of this type would be nine to 13 years’ imprisonment.

Entitled to feel safe

Lord Doherty, delivering the opinion of the court, said of the judge’s approach: “The respondent’s lack of previous analogous offending and his adverse experiences before and after his departure from Iraq were both matters which the judge was entitled to have regard to when considering his circumstances, but in a case such as this we would not expect significant weight to be attached to either of them.”

He continued: “In our view the sentence passed did not adequately reflect the premeditated and predatory nature of the attack by a man of mature years on a vulnerable young woman, the features of abduction and detention, the force used, and the harm the attack caused her. It is clear from her victim impact statement that the attack’s effects on her have been very serious.”

Assessing whether the sentence had a sufficient deterrent effect, Lord Doherty said: “Women are entitled to feel safe when they travel by taxi. Those who prey upon vulnerable women who require a taxi and sexually assault them should be in no doubt that the courts will take a very serious view of that behaviour. The judge’s errors caused him to under-estimate the seriousness of the offence.”

He concluded: “The sentence of 6 years’ imprisonment is unduly lenient. It falls outside the range of sentences which, had the judge applied his mind correctly to all of the relevant factors, could reasonably have been considered appropriate. In the whole circumstances we consider that an extended sentence of 11 years’ imprisonment, made up of a custodial term of 8 years and an extension period of 3 years, is required in order to satisfy all of the relevant sentencing purposes.”

The appeal was therefore allowed, and the new extended sentence substituted for the previous sentence.