Locations
Handsworth, West Midlands, B2
Description
A woman bizarrely shouted "the defendant does not have herpes" as a teenage rapist was jailed.
Wahidullah Hotak, 18, from Handsworth, forced a 24-year-old intoxicated woman to perform a sex act in the toilet of the Wednesbury shop where he worked.
He was sentenced to seven years in prison with an extended three-year licence at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday, May 7, after being found guilty of rape. West Midlands Police released his custody photo.
The victim had been drinking on February 27 last year when she entered the shop asking to use the toilet. Hotak took advantage of her vulnerable state and attacked her.
In her victim impact statement, she said she was told at a Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) she may have HIV or hepatitis. She added that she developed blisters, saying: "They were probably herpes because of the assault."
Herpes is a sexually transmitted infection.
As soon as Hotak’s sentence was confirmed, an unidentified elderly woman in the public gallery stood up and shouted towards Judge Simon Drew KC:
"The defendant does not have herpes."
The judge ordered her to stop and she was ushered out. She was later confirmed to be associated with Hotak.
Hotak, an Afghan national who arrived in the UK in 2023, had one asylum claim rejected but intended to appeal. Prosecutors had believed he was 26 until a document from the Afghanistan Ministry of Interior Affairs confirmed he was 18 at sentencing — and 17 at the time of the attack.
The age ruling reduced his sentence significantly. Judge Drew said it would otherwise have been around ten years. He described Hotak as a "dangerous offender" and told him: "This was a stranger rape and you accept no responsibility for your part in it. I find you pose a significant risk of causing serious harm to the public as a result of committing further specified — that's serious — offences."
Defending him, Francesca Perera said Hotak had a "difficult upbringing" before fleeing Afghanistan. She stressed she did not wish to diminish the impact on the victim but noted there was "no medical evidence to support the herpes claim."