A MAN who pretended to be a taxi driver to carry out a brutal rape on a vulnerable student nurse is today beginning a nine year prison sentence.A unanimous guilty verdict was returned after just three hours by the jury of seven men and five women for the case of Mohanid Alobaydi at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday .

A MAN who pretended to be a taxi driver to carry out a brutal rape on a vulnerable student nurse is today beginning a nine year prison sentence.

A unanimous guilty verdict was returned after just three hours by the jury of seven men and five women for the case of Mohanid Alobaydi at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday .

Alobaydi, who then shouted abuse and swore from the dock, was one of three men involved with the incident which took place in Ipswich town centre late in the evening of March 30 this year.

He was arrested on April 7 at his home address, which was then in Whitton Church Lane, but pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape when the trial started in November.

In his sentencing Judge John Holt said Alobaydi, now of Bulstrode Road, Ipswich, had seen his victim as “easy prey” and exploited her drunkenness for his own gain.

He said: “You tricked her into believing you were driving a taxi and once you got her inside you took her to a quiet, rural part of the town where you attacked her with your co-defendants.

“She was raped twice and you only stopped when she was sick as a result of the oral rape.

“You then took her back into town and my suspicion is that you were taking her back to your own flat where you had previously had several sexual encounters.

“What I believe happened is that on the journey she was both sick and hammering the car door and you realised it was pointless taking her any further and instead you pushed her out of the car door.

“That push caused injuries which were quite unpleasant.

“As a result of the attack your victim was traumatised.”

During the trial prosecutor, Simon Spence, told the jury the victim had consumed a bottle of wine and a vodka with lime and lemonade while out with friends.

But after an argument she left Fire and Ice nightspot, in Tacket Street, alone, at around 11.30pm and decided to get something to eat from King's Kebabs in Upper Orwell Street, before getting a taxi from Ipswich Cab Company nearby.

The jury were told the next thing she remembered was getting into a car she believed to be a taxi, driven by 38-year-old Alobaydi and with an unknown man in the passenger seat.

During the journey the car stopped to pick up a third man who sat in the back next to the woman.

They drove to a secluded spot in Tuddenham Road where the three men got out of the car, leaving the 22-year-old behind.

One of the men got back into the car and raped her while Alobaydi pinned her down and forced her to perform a sex act on him.

The third man watched from the front passenger seat.

The victim was then pushed out of the car at the junction of Blanche Street and Cemetery Road, as they drove back toward the town centre.

The court was told the woman sustained cuts, grazes and bruises to her lips, fingers, hands, back and knees during her ordeal.

Residents were alerted to her shouts and screams around 12.15am.

One of the householders took the woman, who was crying hysterically, into her home and called police.

Alobaydi has a previous conviction for aggravated burglary and threats to kill.