The victim of rapist Yaqub Ahmed has opened up about her continuing anguish and mental struggle as the Somali migrant remains in Britain more than a year after a mutiny by plane passengers botched his deportation, writes The Mail on Sunday.
The distress of the woman, who chose to remain anonymous, has been further compounded by Ahmed’s freshly-launched legal challenge to avoid being deported to his native country of Somalia.
“This can't be allowed to go on, I am struggling to move on. I was in such a good place last year. I was working, I was studying. And then this [the failed deportation] happened and my life has not been the same again. All I want to do is just get on with my life and not constantly worry about this,” the outlet quotes the young woman.
The 28-year-old mother is worried that treatment for her mental health problems “is not going to be effective until all of this comes to a close”.
Disgusted by Ahmed's pleas of innocence at a bail hearing early in November, she said:
“Does he not understand they have got DNA evidence? How could they get DNA evidence if he didn't do it? He can't sit there in the face of everything and say that it didn't happen. I find it ridiculous that he still is not able to admit it.”
The rape victim added:
“This is a tantrum because he knows he is close to getting deported and things aren't going his way. He is clutching at straws.”
Ahmed's current legal challenge against deportation has revived horrific memories of the victim’s rape 12 years ago when she was just a teenager.
She was only 16 when, after enjoying a night out in London's Leicester Square, she was lured to a flat in North London and raped.
Ahmed and two other men were convicted of planning and carrying out the rape and were each jailed for nine years.
A fourth man was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy to rape.
In 2010 Yaqub Ahmed, who still denies his crime, was first told he was liable for deportation.
However, upon lodging an appeal against his removal, he was only put on a plane in October 2018.
Fellow passengers on a flight to Turkey felt sorry for Ahmed, who began screaming he had been separated from his family.
Thinking they were doing a good deed, the passengers stirred up a mutiny before their aircraft left Heathrow.
In a video of the incident, Ahmed is heard screaming as passengers shout: “Take him off the plane!”
Ahmed was bound for Istanbul from where he would have travelled on to Somalia.
The case of Yaqub Ahmed is seen by many as an example of the ineffectiveness of the UK immigration system, as according to figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday, while 3,968 foreign criminals were served with deportation orders last year, 1,803 lodged legal appeals, signifying that they will stay in Britain until their cases are heard.