Beeston Rapist Given 20 Year Sentence
A Slovakian man who subjected an 18-year-old woman to what police describe as one of the most ‘evil and terrifying’ attacks they have ever dealt with has today been handed a 20 year sentence. He will spend 14 years in prison and can be released on licence for 6 years.
Zdenko Turtak, 22, grabbed the victim from behind as she waited at a bus stop on Beeston Road on the evening of March 6. He dragged her into a garden and clubbed her 18 times over the head with a rock, before brutally raping her and leaving her for dead.
In sentencing him, the Recorder of Leeds, Peter Collier QC, said: "I have read the victim's personal statement. The effect has been profound.
"She believes it will affect her whole life, including her prospects in marriage.
"In those eight minutes you destroyed her young life.
"All her youthful hopes and dreams ebbed away in those few minutes."
Members of Turtak's family were present in Leeds Crown Court, including his mother and brother.
Turtak wore a grey jumper and jogging bottoms. Yesterday evening he watched as the court was shown CCTV footage of his attack on the victim, and later began to cry.
The girl had been waiting to catch the bus home to say sorry to her mother after walking out of the house during a disagreement that morning. When she managed to stagger into the street to get help, she said simply: “rape” before falling unconscious on the floor.
"I've dealt with a lot of very, very nasty crimes but this is up there on a whole different level," says Detective Superintendent Nick Wallen, who led the case.
"It's the indiscriminate nature of this attack that concerned me the most, and that we had absolutely no idea for some considerable time who this guy was. That was really worrying because my fear was that this offender would strike again.
"I was briefing my staff two or three times a day, and all I kept saying was 'look at that CCTV, look at what he's done to her - if you need any more motivation, just keep coming back and looking at this'. Nobody did need that extra motivation.
"You don't realise how much pressure you're under until that pressure is lifted. We were massively pleased once we got that message back from Slovakia to say he's in custody. That was a landmark moment."
The police investigation cost in the region of a quarter of a million pounds and saw more than 100 officers working round the clock to identify the attacker. DNA swabs were taken from 620 men living in the area, and police visited more than 2,600 addresses.
One of those men swabbed was later revealed to be Turtak’s brother, who lives just minutes away from the bus stop where the attack took place. The visiting officer asked him to walk up and down Beeston Road to compare it to the CCTV footage of the attacker, but the failed DNA match ruled him out.
Police later discovered Turtak had been staying at that address with his brother, and was returning there on the night of the attack. CCTV revealed he had stalked other women in the hours leading up to the incident and police believe the victim would have been the very last female Turtak encountered before reaching his brother’s flat.
The brother offered no information about Turtak when asked about his siblings. It is thought this visit was one of the triggers that led to Turtak leaving the country for Slovakia via Dover on March 27.
"This is a horrible, evil individual who had set out that day, armed with a rock, with one sole purpose," says Det Supt Wallen.
"Unfortunately I think the victim would have been the last young female he encountered on his route home so how unlucky was she to have been attacked like she was. It was one person responsible, it was him, and happily he's in custody now serving a very long prison sentence."
The victim doesn’t come from the Beeston area, and had only been there visiting friends. She is described by police as coming from a 'strict Muslim background', and they say she is not someone who would usually be walking around the streets on her own.
She had had a disagreement with her mother that morning and walked out of the house after losing her temper. She visited a number of friends in Beeston that day, and was waiting to catch the bus back home to make up with her mother when she was attacked.
Det Supt Wallen says it has had a ‘catastrophic’ effect on the whole family, and the 18-year-old has ‘not moved on at all’.
She still regularly suffers dizziness, nausea and flashbacks as a result of the severe head injury she sustained. It is thought the impact would have been worse had she not been wearing a hijab with her hood pulled up over it.
On an occasion where she tried to leave the house on her own in the months after the attack, police say she ended up panicking that she was being followed and called 999 before running home.
"I hope that the sentence Turtak's received will be of some comfort to her," says Det Supt Wallen.
"But she is not in a good place mentally at all. I think it's that knowledge that will stay with her forever that she has been the victim of just the most awful, evil, abhorrent offence committed by an evil, abhorrent offender and that is very difficult for her to come to terms with. It affects her every moment of every day."
Defending, Robin Frieze told the court that Turtak said in a statement that he was 'deeply ashamed' of what he did.
"He is very sorry and cannot understand how he behaved in the way that he did," Frieze said.