Remember me
An asylum seeker who was unmasked by Reform MP Lee Anderson has been convicted of raping a 'vulnerable' girl he pounced on in a park.
Sheraz Malik's immigration status was exposed by Mr Anderson after the drunken victim was targeted by Malik and his friend last summer.
A judge stopped the public from being told about Malik's asylum status by gagging the press from reporting it until the end of the trial, it can now be revealed.
Jurors last week heard that Pakistani Malik, who was living in a taxpayer-funded house of multiple occupancy, took it in turns with his friend to rape the teenager before asking her: 'Did you enjoy that?'
Following the sex attack, the teenager texted a friend to say 'please help me', jurors were told.
Malik, now 28, subsequently fled from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, on a coach to Newcastle under a false name. He was arrested in the city almost almost three weeks later.
Malik was remanded in custody after being found guilty of two counts of rape, with a date for sentencing to be set next month. He was acquitted of a third count of rape.
Sources have told the Daily Mail that his alleged accomplice has been identified by police and is now believed to be abroad after going on the run.
In posts published on X and Facebook last summer, Mr Anderson claimed he had been asked not to publicise the case by police for fear of jeopardising the prosecution.
He wrote on social media 'Enough is enough…I was asked not to go public on this matter as it might affect the trial. Why would it affect the trial….I will not shut up and do not care about the consequences.'
The posts triggered an anti-immigrant protest in Sutton-in-Ashfield, where the rape took place at the Sutton Lawn park in his constituency, and Malik's trial was later switched from Nottingham to Birmingham amid the increased publicity around the case.
At a hearing at Nottingham Crown Court in September, a judge imposed a reporting restriction postponing publication of Malik's immigration status until the end of the trial, to avoid a 'substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice'.
Reporters were told that at the same hearing while sitting in chambers, a judge gave Mr Anderson, the MP for Ashfield, 18 days to voluntarily remove his social media post or she would consider holding him in contempt of court.
Birmingham Crown Court heard the 18-year-old victim had been drinking vodka in the park with her friend that evening, while the defendant and a group of other men were playing cricket nearby.
Her friend left for a short period to meet another friend, and asked the men to keep an eye on her.
But instead, one of the men - named as 'Asad' by Malik in court - led the woman to a secluded area and raped her.
The court heard Malik - who told housemates he was smuggled into Britain in the boot of a car – then dragged her to a tree by her hair before carrying out his own sex attack.
Lee Anderson's post on X - since deleted - triggered a protest in Sutton-in-Ashfield
Prosecutor Nicholas Corsellis KC told the court: 'The defendant and another man decided to take advantage of this. The first man took her to an isolated area of the park when she said she needed to find somewhere to relieve herself.
'While there, the first man forcibly raped her before bringing her back to the group of men.
'On their return, the defendant decided he wanted to have his way with her and took her to the secluded spot where he physically struck her while raping her.'
Jurors were told Malik told the girl: 'You're going to take it like a slut'.
After Malik finished his sexual assault, the prosecutor said, he asked her: 'Did you enjoy that?'
Mr Corsellis continued: 'Needless to say, she said 'no'.'
The court heard that following the incidents, the woman had texted her friend saying: 'Please help me'.
Begging him to return, she then added that the men had 'tried it on with me'.
In a further message the victim said: 'The f****** one you told to look after me he tried to rape me'.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied she lied about being raped because she was 'embarrassed' about having consensual sex.
The court heard she reported the attack, which took place on June 29 between 9pm-10pm, the same night and police were able to take DNA swabs which returned a profile matching the defendant from his semen.
Birmingham Crown Court heard that following the sex attack, the woman had texted her friend saying: ''Please help me'
Malik, who was assisted in court by a Pakistani Pashto interpreter, told jurors the sex was consensual. He said the girl had removed her own shorts and underwear.
The defendant grinned through part of his evidence.
He told the court that he boarded a coach to Newcastle - booked and paid for by a friend - a day after attending a Home Office appointment in Sheffield on July 3.
At one point during his cross-examination by Mr Corsellis he was asked why he had taken advantage of the drunk victim and replied: 'What else was I supposed to do?'
The court heard his accomplice had earlier raped the girl after she said she needed the toilet and he led her to an isolated area of the park to 'ensure her privacy'.
Malik said the woman had appeared to be drunk.
Mr Corsellis asked: 'She's 18 but she was obviously vulnerable, wasn't she?'
Malik answered: 'No.'
When he was asked how he arrived in Europe, Malik protested that the quesetion was not relevant - prompting judge SImon Ash KC to intervene.
In the absense of the jury, Mr Corsellis explained that he was trying to demonstrate to the jury the difference in age and life experience between Malik and the 18-year-old complainant.
The judge decided that line of questioning was not relevant to the case.
Malik went on to tell jurors he had lived in Italy, Germany and France, and arrived in Europe when he was '17 or 18'.
But a housemate in the hostel where he lived with four other asylum seekers - two Iranian Kurds and two men from Sudan - said Malik had told them he had previously lived in Sweden.
One of the Kurdish men, Hedi Shariatzadeh, said the semi-detached property in Sutton-in-Ashfield was a Home Office hostel which housed asylum seekers while their claims were processed.
He claimed Malik had lived there for 'three or four' months after saying he had arrived in the UK from France in the boot of a car.
Mr Shariatzadeh, 23, added: 'Sheraz said he had been living in Sweden for six or seven years after going there from Pakistan and then one night got talking to two Afghan men and decided to come to the UK.
'This was about 10 months ago, then I think he was in a hotel somewhere before coming here.
'He travelled to France from Sweden and then came here. I don't know why he left Sweden or why he had originally left Pakistan as he didn't say, but he is a Muslim so it can't have been because of his religion.
One the first day I met him, I said to one of the other guys that he was dodgy. We had a lot of arguments because he talked so much about religion. And recently we had a fight because he was upset I was cooking bacon.
'I don't know if he worked, but sometimes he would go away for three or four weeks before coming back. I think he had a brother and cousin somewhere else in the UK. But mostly he would just hang out, and play cricket.
'On the day this is meant to have happened, June 29, we had an argument and he swung a cricket bat at me. Then he went to the park where it took place to play cricket. This was about six o'clock.'
Mr Shariatzadeh said that later that night, Malik 'came home and washed all his clothes'.
He added: 'He used all my washing powder. The next day he went away, and I never saw him again. The police came here looking for him a few times - I don't know where he was finally arrested, but it wasn't here.'
While speaking to our reporter last July, Mr Shariatzadeh said the publicity surrounding the case had left him concerned. He added: 'My window is right on the street. Last night I was awake all night. I'm worried something might happen, but up until now everyone on this street has been okay with us.
'Something like this is bad for all of us, because it makes people think all asylum seekers are like this, when we are not.'
At the time of the rape, there was no guidance for forces about disclosing ethnicity or immigration status of a person on charge.
But last August, the National Police Chiefs' Council released new guidance stating that police may release the ethnicity and nationality of suspects after they have been charged.
In November the Law Commission said publishing suspects' immigration status, ethnicity and religion 'will generally not create risk' of prejudicing their future trials.
Its review of contempt of court laws in the online age came after disorder across the UK in the wake of the Southport murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Bebe King, six, in 2024.
Then, false claims spread online that the perpetrator Axel Rudakubana, then 17, was an asylum seeker who had come to the country by boat.
The Judicial Communications Office said there were no contempt of court proceedings logged in relation to this case, but declined to comment further.