Immigrant jailed for gay pride rape
An illegal immigrant who raped a lesbian at London’s Gay Pride festival has been jailed for life.
Dominic Mailat, 42, who had already served two prison terms for rape in his native Romania in the 1980s, launched a savage attack on his 24-year-old Spanish victim at the event in July 2000 before going on the run for five years.
The woman had no ticket for the festival but Mailat offered to get her one from an acquaintance.
He drove her from the festival in Finsbury Park to a flat in nearby Wood Green, where he beat her with an iron bar and hit her with a broom, knocking out three of her teeth as she desperately fought him off. He then strangled her before raping her.
She only managed to escape after she jumped from a first floor window, crashing onto a concrete floor and suffering multiple injuries, the Old Bailey heard.
By the time police arrived he had fled but his DNA was traced to a false name he had given when cautioned for shop lifting, also in 2000.
Mailat then went on the run, leaving London for Romania, before skipping bail and fleeing to Germany and France.
However the case was reopened after a cold case review and his true identity was revealed when immigration files were re-examined and a forged army pass was traced back to him when Romanian police were contacted.
He was arrested in southern Germany for fare dodging, in August 2005, and extradited to the UK the following month.
Mailat pleaded guilty to rape and causing GBH with intent. Jailing him for life on both counts, Judge Hawkins QC said: The victim entered your car believing she could gain entry to a festival. You took her to an address, there you violently assaulted her, ripping her trousers and underwear.
“She fought back punching you in the body, indeed knocking some of your teeth out. You responded by striking her with a metal door handle many times.
“She poked you in the eye then you strangled her. You struck her with a metal chain. You bit her back and shoulders through her clothing and then you raped her. She was a woman that had not had sexual intercourse with a man before.
“She only managed to make her escape by jumping from a first floor window. She was left with multiple injuries. There can be no doubt this had a serious effect upon her.”
Speaking outside court, DS Ash Hornsby said: “From the details of this offence and from his list of previous conviction in Romania for rape, at least one of them involving weapons, he can only be described as an extremely violent man.”
