(Image: Newsquest/Boris Thomson)
A court has heard how a homeless woman who was dying or already dead was the victim of an attempted rape attack in a tent in Bradford city centre.
A jury at Bradford Crown Court heard today (Mon) how Hassan Shah was captured on CCTV going into the victim’s tent on Kirkgate on the morning of November 8.
After lying next to the unconscious woman the 26-year-old pulled down her clothing without making any effort to communicate with her.
“During the entire incident you will see that (the complainant) does not move,” Mr Wright told the jury ahead of playing them some of the pixelated CCTV footage.
“The reason that she did not move is that she was either dying or in fact dead at the time.”
Mr Wright explained that by the time the emergency services arrived on the scene the complainant had in fact died.
“I should make it clear at the outset that (she) died for reasons unconnected to Mr Shah,” said the prosecutor.
“She had taken synthetic cannabis or ‘spice’ and a lot of alcohol and that is what caused her death.”
The jury were told that a judge had already ruled that due to Shah’s low IQ and a learning disability he was ‘unfit to plead’ and he was not present at court today for a hearing to decide if he ‘did the acts’ alleged against him.
After retiring to consider the evidence presented to them the jury returned unanimous determinations that Shah, of Edderthorpe Street, Bradford, ‘did the acts’ in respect of allegations of attempted rape and attempted assault by penetration.
Judge Kirstie Watson said the case would have to be adjourned until December for reports to be prepared before Shah could be sentenced.
Due to Shah’s disability and the finding that he was ‘unfit to plead’ he cannot face a prison sentence for his offending, but the judge will have to decide if a hospital order, a supervision order or a discharge is appropriate in his case.
At the time, the Telegraph & Argus described how one eye-witness was walking to work when he came across the "heart-breaking" scene.
A photo of the scene on Kirkgate, Bradford city centre
He told the T&A: "I walked past the tent this morning and other homeless people were hovering around then the security guard from outside Savers grabbed a couple of coppers walking around."
Police then closed a section at the top of the road.
He added: "Nobody saw anything of any nature but walking past knowing there was someone sadly passed away in there was heartbreaking - another homeless lady said she didn’t report it because she didn’t want to get involved. People’s main thought was how long has this lady been there."