Asylum seeker, 34, ‘raped woman in seaside town park just 40 days after arriving in the UK from France’

An asylum seeker raped a woman in a seaside town park just 40 days after arriving in the UK, a court has heard.

Saad Gomaa, 34, told the woman he was ‘illegal’, jurors heard, as he allegedly took advantage of her drunkenness to rape her.

Gomaa allegedly attacked the woman after she wandered into Tower Gardens in Skegness after dark. He was arrested in a bar in the Lincolnshire resort later that night.

Prosecutor Clive Stockwell KC said police officers realised Gomaa required an Arabic interpreter and asked him to confirm a number of details.

The barrister said the defendant confirmed his name as Saad Gomaa and gave the details of the Skegness hotel where he was staying.

Gomaa also confirmed: ‘I have only been in the country 40 days.’

The woman was allegedly raped in the Skegness park (pictured) by the ‘illegal’ migrant after entering the gardens to relieve herself

A dogwalker at the park said she found the woman crouched down and  holding onto the park railings while she was on the phone to the police

When asked to give the name of the country he had come from, Gomaa replied: ‘France.’

Mr Stockwell said documents found during a search of the hotel where Gomaa was billeted ‘supported (that) he was on Home Office bail on determination of his asylum application.’

During his police interview Gomaa said: ‘I’ve only been here 40 days so I don’t have a special routine’.

‘All I do is go for a coffee in that restaurant and then I go where my feet take me.’

He claimed he had consensual sex with the woman, who had travelled to the town by train earlier that day. 

Gomaa has been staying at the County Hotel (pictured) after entering the UK from France

A Parade in Skegness shows three hotels overlooking the park, which are currently housing asylum seeker; The County Hotel where Gomaa is satying is the large building on the far right,

Lincoln Crown Court heard the woman had consumed a bottle of vodka, and had gone into the gardens to relieve herself after being turned away from a nightspot.

She told police the man ‘just appeared’.

‘I remember this man being here’, she said. ‘He wasn’t English, and then I remember being on the ground and this guy was sat next to me, kind of.

‘I was trying to engage in conversation with him’, she said. ‘I was asking him if he was legally here. I remember that question

‘He said ‘illegal, illegal.”

The panicking woman said she tried to appear friendly to the man, who was dressed in a tracksuit, but told him: ‘i don’t want sex, I don’t want sex’.

She said he handed her a vial of liquid ‘like a test tube but smaller’, before he kissed her and climbed on top of her.

‘She was in no position to fight him off’, Mr Stockwell said.

‘This was rape, pure and simple’.

The jury also heard a statement from a dog walker who found the alleged rape victim in Tower Gardens.

Chantelle Moses said: ‘I could see a woman crouched down holding onto the park railings. I walked over to her and I could see she was already on the phone to the police.

‘I asked her ‘what was wrong?’ She said she had been raped in the park.’

A statement was also read from a police officer who arrived at the scene and found the alleged rape victim ‘intoxicated.’

‘She kept saying she had been raped by an illegal immigrant in the bushes in Tower Gardens,’ the officer said.

Jurors heard the officer asked the woman to enter Tower Gardens and show him where the incident occurred but she refused, saying ‘he might still be in there.’

Gomaa, who’s address on the court file is County Hotel, Skegness, denies rape.

The trial continues.