Indian student seen on CCTV carrying woman to rape her sentenced in UK

London, June 18 (IANS) A 20-year-old Indian student, who was captured on CCTV carrying a woman home to rape her last June, has been sentenced for more than six years, police said.

Preet Vikal was seen in the footage carrying the "intoxicated" woman in his arms and across his shoulders along King Edward VII Avenue and North Road, the South Wales Police said on Friday.

He continued to carry the victim to a property in the North Road area where he raped her during the early hours of June 4, 2022.

Vikal, who had met the woman while she was on a night out with friends in the city on June 3, admitted rape, and was sentenced to six years and nine months in a young offenders' institution.

Detective Constable Nick Woodland from South Wales Police said: "Stranger attacks such as these are extremely unusual in Cardiff but in Preet Vikal we had a dangerous individual".

"He took advantage of an intoxicated and vulnerable young woman who became separated from her friends," Woodland said.

Officers carried out an extensive trawl of CCTV and it was this footage, along with an Instagram message exchange with the victim, that led to Vikal being identified and arrested.

He will serve two thirds of the sentence in custody and the remainder on licence.

The victim read a statement at Vikal's sentencing and said she did not want to go on nights out for five months after the rape.

"It was really difficult to pretend I was okay when I wasn't," the victim was quoted as saying in The Sun.

He also took a "trophy photograph" of her on his bed, The Sun report said, adding that the victim remembered waking up naked next to Vikal but did not know where she was or that she had been raped.

She reported about Vikal on the same day to the police and he was arrested.

"We hope the sentencing brings some sense of closure and allows the woman to regain her confidence and move on with her life," Detective Constable Woodland said.

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