Ramdeen Farooqy

On the evening of 3 August 2018, an 18-year-old woman was out celebrating a birthday with her boyfriend and friends in Southampton. The group began drinking at a pub before moving to Oceana nightclub. Inside the club, the woman was seen talking to a group of unknown men, including Ramdeen Farooqy.

Around 2am on 4 August 2018, she was observed in the nightclub's car park with Farooqy and another man. Despite her boyfriend calling out to her, the intoxicated woman did not recognise him and entered their car, which then drove away. Later that morning, she awoke naked in a room at the Winston Hotel in Southampton, with Farooqy and the other man present. Still disoriented and falling in and out of consciousness, she was assisted by the men to dress and leave the hotel, with help from the hotel manager. The men then drove her home after she contacted her mother for her postcode, as she could not remember it.

Upon arriving home, the woman disclosed to her parents that she had been drinking and had no memory of the night's events after the pub. Fearing sexual assault based on the circumstances, she sought advice from Treetops Sexual Assault Referral Centre and reported the incident to police the following day. The investigation, led by Hampshire Constabulary's Operation Amberstone, revealed that Farooqy and his accomplice had recorded footage of the woman during the assault without her knowledge.

After a two-week trial at Southampton Crown Court in June 2021, Ramdeen Farooqy, aged 25 from Arundel Drive in Harrow, London, was found guilty by a jury of one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault. He stood trial for additional charges including further sexual assaults, rape, and voyeurism related to the same incident but was acquitted on those. On 24 November 2021, Farooqy was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. The victim, now 21, read a Victim Personal Statement in court, stating: 'These two men have made my existence painful. They have made me feel like if I let my guard down for even a second, something will happen to me. They took away my worth, my privacy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice. All I have to say to them is, how dare you.' The sentencing judge imposed a combined 16 years for both men, highlighting the severity of the offences.

Source: Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary official news release, published 24 November 2021.