Man sexually assualted woman while on bail for raping teenager

A man who raped a teenager and sexually assaulted an older woman while he was on bail after the first offence has been jailed for nine years.

Traian Covaci attacked an 18-year-old in a close in Perth in the company of one of his friends on October 31, 2022.

When the victim said “stop” his friend left the scene. Covaci remained, pinned the teenager against a wall, sexually assaulted, and raped her.

A judge at the High Court in Edinburgh said the victim’s last image of the rapist while she fled was of him “smirking at her”.

The 23-year-old denied the charges but following a trial at the High Court in Stirling he was found guilty.

After being freed on bail at Perth Sheriff Court in December 2022, he struck again on January 11, 2025, when he sexually assaulted another woman by repeatedly molesting her and making sexual remarks to her with the intent to rape her.

He also behaved in a threatening or abusive way when he entered the home of a pensioner uninvited and, after he was removed from the property, shouted, swore and gestured threats of violence towards her daughter and her husband.

Defence counsel Lynsey Morgan told the court that Covaci maintained his innocence.

She said Covaci moved to Scotland when he was ten years old and later went to Romania for a short period before returning to Scotland.

She said he has no previous convictions for sexual offending and presented as an “immature young man”.

Covaci was placed on the sex offenders’ register for an indefinite period, and the judge made non harassment orders prohibiting him from contacting or attempting to contact his victims.

Lord Harrower told him: “You have been convicted of the rape and sexual assault of one woman, and while on bail in connection with that offence, of sexually assaulting another woman with intent to rape her.”

The judge said: “Each assault was particularly degrading and humiliating.” He said the women that Covaci attacked were “each vulnerable in different ways”.

Lord Harrower said that he took into account that Covaci was 20 years old at the time of the first offence.

He told Covaci, who had the help of a Romanian interpreter in the proceedings: “Such is the seriousness of your offending in this case a custodial sentence is inevitable.”

He said the sentence he would impose would be a shorter one than that which would be passed on an older offender for the same crimes.

The judge ordered that, in addition to the prison term imposed on him, he should be subject to supervision in the community for a further two years, when he will be on licence and can be returned to jail if he breaches its conditions.