Man convicted after prowling university towns sexually assaulting students
A man who sneaked into student accommodation and attempted to rape a sleeping student has been found guilty at Manchester Crown Court, and is facing jail for a string of attacks on female undergraduates from across the country.
Tahir Nazir, a 40-year-old Glaswegian divorcee and former Dundee University student, was found guilty of all charges against him at the trial: trespasses with intent to commit an offence, sexual assault, attempted rape and three charges of trespass with intent to commit a sexual assault.
Manchester Crown Court heard today that Tahir Nazir had made repeated attempts to get into rooms of students at various British university towns, making two attempts on Manchester students. Tahir was claimed to have a sexual obsession with students.
Nazir was first arrested in November last year, as a result of girls living in a shared house in Fallowfield reporting that an intruder was attempting to gain access to their rooms at around 4:40am. The girls alerted each other of Nazir’s attempts over text messages and Facebook.
The incident was then linked to another young woman in New Lawrence House, Hulme. This time the girl had returned from a Halloween night out, to wake up later that night to Nazir licking her neck, ‘naked from the waist down’ thrusting himself on her, fuelled by cocaine.
Nazir had gained access to the building by following another woman into the building and unsuccessfully trying to gain access to her room.
When challenged by the young woman whose room he had gained access to, he then proceeded to attempt to enter other rooms. Prosecutor Henry Blackshaw told the jury that he was in a “somewhat frustrated and aroused state”.
DNA was able to link Nazir to the Hulme attack, and he was then arrested in Fallowfield. On arrest police found Viagra and a fake Glasgow University ID in his car.
At the trial it was revealed Nazir had driven 7,000 miles touring university towns and sleeping in his car at night. He went to Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Oxford, Bristol, and Cardiff.
It was also revealed that Victoria Halls in Rusholme had been a target, with Nazir taking 38 pictures of the building. He had also made Internet searches of ‘high school girls’, ‘Freshers’ week’ and ‘Swansea University Students’ Union’.
Alongside the convictions for the Hulme and Fallowfield offences, Nazir was also found guilty for crimes committed in Wales. Last September a visitor at Cathays student neighbourhood in Cardiff woke up finding Nazir “on top” of her “very drunk” friend.
Nazir had gained entrance to the building by smashing the bathroom window, after being found he left, only to return again to pester and proposition them.
Nazir denied all the allegations against him at the trial, claiming the woman had invited him back to their accommodation in Hulme and Cardiff. In the Fallowfield incident he claimed to be looking for a drug dealer who had ripped him off.
Prosecuting, Mr Blackshaw said: “Evidence shows him travelling from Scotland down into England, through England and down into Wales—all part of sexually predatory behaviour targeted at university undergraduate females.
“Not just targeting them in general, but targeting them within accommodation. During the dead of night he breaks into accommodation using one device or another, and then having done that, on two of the occasions, sexually attacks females who are asleep in their beds.”