Birmingham rapist who lured teenage victim through flat-sharing app jailed for 12 years

Mirza Begg showed his victim “a sinister-looking” cache of weaponry including knives, a sword and bullets, before raping and sexually assaulting her at his home in Birmingham last year.

Jurors convicted the 34-year-old, of Coventry Road, Small Heath, of rape in September after hearing how he lured the teenager to his flat with the promise of allowing her to live there.

Begg, who claimed all sexual contact with the victim had been consensual, was also found guilty of two charges of assault by penetration, intentional strangulation, making threats with a bladed weapon, and assault.

Prosecutor Joshua Purser told Birmingham Crown Court on Friday that the victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was deliberately put in fear and subdued by being shown the weapons before she was attacked.

She was then held against her will and “had to be rescued” by police after messaging a friend to say she had been assaulted.

Begg’s trial heard the “extremely vulnerable” woman contacted him on the Roomies app, and had been picked up by him in a car he borrowed from a relative.

The offender, who has previous convictions for battery and theft, appeared at his sentencing hearing via a prison videolink, having refused to help probation staff prepare a pre-sentence report.

Mr Purser told the court: “We submit that the use of the app was demonstrative of his planning – a deliberate trap by which he could conjure up a pretence to bring a female into his flat with no witnesses.

“There was not a single moment of consensual sexual activity despite what he said at trial.”

Passing sentence, Judge Simon Drew KC said the six offences committed by Begg, who was ordered to register as a sex offender for life, constituted “very serious” offending.

Begg, who told the victim he was recently divorced and looking for someone to share his home, had intended to entice the woman to live at his flat, the judge said.

When the woman resisted, the court heard, Begg had sworn at her, told her to “deal with it” and then sexually assaulted her despite repeated attempts to fight him off.

Begg also slapped the victim and, having finished sexually assaulting her, used a knife to threaten her.

Eventually Begg fell asleep, the police were contacted and he was arrested, the judge said.

Judge Drew told Begg: “This was an extremely serious offence in which you had deliberately planned to lure the victim to your home and she was clearly someone who was young – almost half your age – and you targeted her.”

Begg was told he will have to serve two-thirds of his sentence in custody before being released on licence.