By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A man has been jailed for up to six years and faces being deported after showing “absolutely no remorse” for the violent rape of a Facebook ‘friend’ in a Berwick nightclub car park in 2014.
Anjan Shrestha, 29, had been convicted by a County Court jury after pleading not guilty to one count of rape.
Shrestha had “stalked” his victim before the offence, then repeatedly lied about the incident to his girlfriend, police and the jury, County Court Judge Geoffrey Chettle said in his sentencing remarks on 14 September.
During the incident, the accused followed the victim and her friends leaving the Dance Nightclub shortly after 2am on 24 August 2014.
He drove behind them with his car’s headlights switched off.
As the victim separated from her friends to buy chips from a kebab shop, Shrestha moved his car to wait in a remote corner of a car park for the victim.
When she passed carrying her chips, Shrestha called out her name then grabbed her from behind and pushed her to the ground.
As he attacked her she punched, squirmed and told him to get off her. He told her he knew her on Facebook and raped her about five times, the victim had stated.
Judge Chettle said Shrestha only ceased the attack when the victim forced him off.
He ran to his car and later that night changed his Facebook name and altered his profile picture from his face to a car.
Shrestha told his girlfriend that night and later a County Court jury that the sex was consensual.
The victim, in her impact statement, stated she had been medicated for post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression since the rape.
She stated she breaks down in social situations and may never get over the events.
In sentencing Judge Chettle said he would have jailed Shrestha for a term of “double figures” if not constrained by “current sentencing practices”.
The offence, which carries a maximum term of 25 years, was at the “upper-to-moderate” end of seriousness, Judge Chettle said.
He noted Shrestha was psychologically assessed as a serious risk of re-offending and as self-absorbed and unwilling to take part in a sexual offenders’ program.
The accused was also a Nepalese national sponsored on a partner’s visa by his pregnant girlfriend and that he was likely to be deported, the judge said.
“In my view, it will be in the interests of the community to have you deported.”
Shrestha has been convicted of subsequent dangerous driving and failing to stop at an accident in 2015.
Judge Chettle sentenced Shrestha to a four-year non-parole period, and placed him on the sexual offenders’ register for eight years.
