(Image: West Yorkshire Police)
A man who slapped and strangled a woman after she rebuffed his sexual advances has been locked up for two-and-a-half years.
The victim of Qazi Waqas’s violence was so terrified that she wet herself.
She later said she had concerns about the outcome of the case, what effect it would have on Waqas, and “what he could be capable of”.
Waqas, 39, of Emerson Avenue, Daisy Hill, Bradford, who denied intentional strangulation and common assault, was convicted by a jury following a trial at Bradford Crown Court.
Jailing him, Her Honour Judge Sophie McKone said: “I am satisfied, having heard the evidence [at the trial], that you made sexual advances towards [the victim] and when she rebuffed you, you became extremely angry and acted in this frightening and very violent way.
“What you did was very dangerous.
"You lost control of yourself, and you could have caused much more serious injury to [her].
“Your behaviour is also extremely worrying.”
She added: “What happened to her continues to haunt her to this day.”
The court heard that the victim was at home alone when Waqas arrived on the morning of January 22, 2024.
When she refused his offer of a massage, Waqas slapped her hard to the face three or four times, the force of which caused her to fall onto the sofa.
Judge McKone said: “You then strangled [the victim], and she graphically was able to demonstrate in her evidence how you did that.
“You put both your thumbs onto her neck.
"You used two hands.
"You used full force.
“And, as a result, she urinated.”
When he realised there was a camera in the house, Waqas ran away.
Judge McKone said: “This was clearly a terrifying experience for [the victim].
“She was effectively detained in her own home – a place where she was entitled to feel safe.”
In a statement read to the court by prosecution barrister Clare Walsh, the victim said she had suffered severe shock, fear, and anxiety and that the trauma had impacted her everyday life to the extent that she had isolated herself.
Miss Walsh said: “She finds it frightening to face the possibility that he could again try to harm her.”
In mitigation, Ella Embleton-Brown said Waqas, a father-of-four, was a man of previous good character.
She said he had arrived in the UK in 2022 and other than the offences for which he had been convicted had not appeared before the courts.
She said his wife had struggled with him being in custody and that it had had “a detrimental impact” on her and the family.
Judge McKone sentenced Waqas to two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for intentional strangulation plus a further three months, to run concurrently, for common assault.
She said he would serve half of the custodial term.
Waqas, who appeared via video link from HMP Leeds, was also made subject to a restraining order “without limit of time” banning him from any contact with the victim.
Judge McKone said: “You continue to blame [the victim] for what happened that morning as you did in your evidence [at the trial].”