Shop worker raped teenage customer in his store after getting her drunk on vodka and Martini


A shop worker who raped a teenage customer in his store has been put behind bars for ten years.
Married dad Mohammed Rahman closed his Cash Exchange shop, in Houghton, while he carried out the attack in an upstairs, windowless store area.
A customer who came into the store once it re-opened saw the victim “shocked and distressed” and she asked him to “help her”
Newcastle Crown Court heard the 30-year-old attacker had fixed the girl’s phone without charge and given her free “widget spinners and headphones” after she came into his shop a few weeks earlier to buy a gift for her mum’s birthday.
Rahman then found her profile on social media and would send messages calling her “beautiful”.
The court heard on the day of the offence, Rahman plied her with “stupefying” alcohol, including sparkling Martini and vodka, until she was “drunk”.
It was when the teen lay down on a sofa in the storage area Rahman attacked.
Judge Amanda Rippon told him: “You went upstairs and told her to take her trousers off.
“She said she was tired and wanted to go home.
“You didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
The court heard the teen vomited after she was raped by Rahman and then passed out either unconscious or asleep because of her state.
She was still on the sofa when the customer came in and “was unable to remember how old she was but was able to say her name”.
In a victim statement the teen said she felt scared to go about her daily routine after the attack as she was “worried” Rahman would turn up.
She added: “It has made me feel worthless and angry that this has happened to me.
“I feel I can’t trust anyone, especially boys.
“I don’t trust that they wont hurt me, like the defendant did.”
Rahman, of Broomfield Street, London and formerly living in Hartlepool, denied rape but was found guilty by a jury after a trial.
He must now sign the sex offenders register for life.
The court heard Rahman’s wife, who is due to give birth, is standing by him and he is of previous good character.