News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members other artilces from the December 2001 / January 2002 issue RPI news archive

Jail term for landlord who raped tenant - December 2001 / January 2002

A landlord who raped his female tenant while she slept has been sentenced to seven years in jail and placed on the Sex Offenders' Register.

Iranian born Abbas Dadgarnejad, 38, had been accused of having sex with the girl in his own bedroom after she had entered whilst sleepwalking. The teenager had climbed into his bed where she awoke the following morning.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey trial, the girl, who rented a room with her fiancé in Dadgarnejad's London flat, said she only realised she was in a different room when she woke the next morning. 'I was very scared and thought it was a dream', she said.

Professor Gregory Storer, an expert in sleepwalking, told the court it was not unusual for sleepwalkers to get into other beds. He discounted Dadgarnejad's claim that the girl could have initiated sexual activity because at the time she would have been in a 'deep, unresponsive sleep'.

Sentencing Dadgarnejad, Judge Simon Goldstein said a row between both parties shortly before the incident would have made it plain that the girl had 'no sexual interest' in him whatsoever.
 

other artilces from the December 2001 / January 2002 issue

• 'Joined up' thinking overdue
• RLA launches assurance schemes
• Jail term for landlord who raped tenant
• Electronic gas certificates
• Byers promotes limited licensing
• 'Cancer risk' with roofing felt
• Government changes law to reverse court benefits loss
• Deprived areas have stamp duty 'abolished'
• Reader win rates refund
• In brief
• Evicting the 'Rigsby' image