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Pictured: 'Selfish' rapist jailed after prowling Colchester looking for victims

Miridon Bera, 30, had been on the look out for a vulnerable female in Colchester on the night he raped a woman <i>(Image: Essex Police)</i>
Miridon Bera, 30, had been on the look out for a vulnerable female in Colchester on the night he raped a woman (Image: Essex Police)

A “SELFISH” rapist who caused “lasting trauma” to his victim after taking advantage of her while she was on a night out in Colchester has been jailed.

Miridon Bera, 30, had been on the look out for a vulnerable female in the city on the night in question, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Judge Martyn Levett said he had taken advantage of the victim, who had been visibly intoxicated.

The judge told a sentencing hearing Bera had continued to plead his innocence despite being convicted of rape following a trial.

He described the defendant as “selfish” and said his actions had caused lasting physical and psychological trauma.

In a statement, the victim described the devastating impact the attack had had on her life.

She said she had been left feeling suicidal after being brutally raped by Bera and had “simultaneously felt disgust and pity” for her body and what it had been through.

The woman, who is in her 20s, said she felt completely “knocked down” by what Bera had done to her and had suffered night terrors.

Gazette: Miridon Bera jailed after raping woman in Colchester
Gazette: Miridon Bera jailed after raping woman in Colchester

Miridon Bera jailed after raping woman in Colchester (Image: Essex Police)

“Something was taken from on that night that I will never get back,” she said.

“I wasn’t just sexually assaulted, I had my virginity stolen from me and what should’ve been a loving shared experience became my greatest trauma.

“I had envisioned having sex for the first time with someone I cared about when the time was ready for me.

“It should have been my choice, my body and the time I decided, but instead I was completely violated.”

She described the trauma of having to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases and having to take preventative HIV medication.

She also had a string of medical appointments for Hepatitis B injections and testing and it was several months until she was finally cleared of the last disease.

She said that due to her lack of memory from the night of the attack she had spent more than three years wondering exactly what happened to her on that night.

“I lost my confidence, my innocence was stolen and I will never be the same again,” she said.

Bera, of Talavera Crescent, Colchester, had denied raping the woman at his flat in Bank Passage, Colchester, in July 2019 but was found guilty after a trial last month.

He was jailed for eight and a half years and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.

During the trial the court heard the victim had visited Turtle Bay and Walkabout bars in Colchester during a night out with a friend.

Her next memory was being in a brightly lit room and pushing a man in the chest and telling him to get off her.

She said she didn’t know where she was and her next memory was hearing her friend’s voice and getting into her friend’s mother’s car.

In a statement her friend’s mother described her as being like a “sack of potatoes” and “having very little control over her body”.

In another statement the victim’s mother said her daughter’s friend told her she thought her daughter’s drink had been spiked.

The court heard experts who analysed a urine sample taken from the woman 18 hours after the alleged rape hadn’t detected the presence of any drugs.

However, they said the “date rape” drug GHB was rapidly eliminated from the body within one to two hours and wouldn’t have shown up.

Giving evidence Bera denied he had raped the woman and claimed the sex was consensual.

He said they had chatted and kissed and when he said he was leaving she had been happy to go with him.

He said she had had no problem walking up the stairs to his flat and once inside they had kissed before having consensual sex.

He denied she had pushed him away at any stage.