NIGERIAN NIGHTCLUB BOUNCER IS JAILED FOR 7 YEARS FOR RAPING A WOMAN IN HER HOME

IDREEZ POPOOLA

A Nigerian living in the UK, Idreez Popoola(34), who should have been deported in 2006 after visa expired has been jailed for 7 years for raping a woman in her home.

He was twice spared deportation but went on to rape a woman just months after using human rights legislation to remain in the UK.

Idreez Popoola,will finally be sent back home when he is released from a seven-year jail term imposed after the attack in the victim’s home.

A court heard that Popoola came to the UK on a 12-month visa in 2005, but when it expired he was given permission to remain on a temporary basis. 

But when Popoola was arrested by Northamptonshire Police in December 2011 over an allegation of assault he was found to be an ‘overstayer’ – an immigrant who had not left the country by an agreed date.

Although no charges followed the alleged assault, Popoola – by now married with a child – was told he would be deported. 

However, he successfully appealed the ruling, arguing that the Human Rights Act provided him with the right to a family life.

Northampton Crown Court heard that Popoola, who worked as a nightclub bouncer, was granted temporary leave to remain in the UK again in January last year, after his family circumstances were taken into account. 

But 11 months later he went on to brutally rape a woman in her own home.

Popoola, who sold mobile phone top-up cards in Nigeria before moving to the UK, is thought to have lived in Oxford before settling in Thornton Heath, South London, where he trained as a bouncer and gained work with an agency which supplied a Northampton nightclub

Gordon Aspden, prosecuting, said Popoola met his victim at a McDonald’s restaurant in the town. After going back to her home he attacked her, then forced her to drive him to a train station. Popoola was sentenced to seven years after being found guilty of rape following a four-day trial.

Judge Lynn Tayton told him: ‘It was a serious aggravating factor that the rape took place in the victim’s own home, as this was an abuse of the trust placed in you by the victim and has undermined her feelings of safety in her own space.’