Barzan Nawshowani who raped vulnerable woman looking for taxi home after night out has sentence increased

A rapist who attacked a vulnerable woman after she thought she was taking a taxi home has had his prison sentence increased by appeal judges.

Barzan Nawshowani assaulted the 20-year-old at his barber’s shop in Duke Street, in Glasgow, after the victim was drinking on a night out.

Nawshowani, an Iraqi Kurdish refugee who successfully secured asylum in the UK, was convicted of raping the woman and sentenced to six years imprisonment following a trial.

But the Crown challenged the sentence imposed on him at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh with Scotland’s senior law officer Dorothy Bain KC arguing that it was unduly lenient.

Lord Doherty, sitting with Lord Matthews and Lord Beckett, quashed the original sentence and increased the sex attacker’s prison term to eight years.

They also ordered that he should be under supervision in the community for a further three year period when he can be returned to jail if he breaches licence conditions.

Lord Doherty said that Nawshowani was 37 at the time of the offence on August 7 in 2022 and his student victim was aged 20.

The judge said: “In our view the sentence passed did not adequately reflect the premeditated and predatory nature of the attack by a man of mature years on a vulnerable young woman.”

Lord Doherty said: “It is clear from her victim impact statement that the attack’s effects on her have been very serious.”

“We also consider that the sentence did not sufficiently serve the purposes of protection of the public; of marking the court’s disapproval of the respondent’s conduct; and of deterring others from offending in a similar way.”

“Women are entitled to feel safe when they travel by taxi. Those who prey upon vulnerable women who require a taxi and sexually assault them should be in no doubt that the courts will take a very serious view of that behaviour,” said Lord Doherty.