Pakistani immigrant crime: A depraved predator has been convicted of raping a woman with Down Syndrome after he lured her back to his house when she became separated from her mother

The Central Criminal Court in Ireland heard how Faisal Ellahi (34) approached 16 other women in the area around the same time as the rape and how he also tried to force his way into a female neighbor's home. Ellahi, originally from Haripur, Pakistan, admitted in court that he propositioned women as he walked the streets near his Dublin home, asking them for "consensual fun". Sickeningly he admitted "sexual contact" with his victim, but claimed that he didn't know she had a mental disability. He claimed that she had enjoyed the abuse. The trial heard that the victim told a specialist interviewer that Ellahi locked the door behind them and that she was afraid he was going to stab or kill her. "I wanted to go home, but he wouldn't let me," she said. "At one point she panicked and started banging on the door screaming 'Help, mum, help'." Ellahi claimed that he had never heard of Down syndrome until his arrest, that in his native country of Pakistan people with mental impairments are kept at home or in hospitals. He was found guilty by a jury of sexual assault of the woman, who has a mental age as low as seven. After the verdict came in, a visibly moved Mr Justice Tony Hunt said that the case was one of the most difficult he had ever dealt with. He told the jurors that their verdict was "absolutely correct" and that Ellahi's claim that the woman consented to the acts or was capable of consenting to them was "absolutely ludicrous." "He attempted to deceive you, as he did others, and fool you, but you didn't fall for it," he told jurors. Gardai - the Irish police - are investigating whether Ellahi has committed other sex crimes between the time he arrived in Ireland in 2005 and when he was first locked up after being charged with rape. It has also emerged that gardai who were attempting to probe Ellahi's background in Pakistan did not receive any information from authorities there on any potential criminal activity in his home country. Ellahi had pleaded not guilty to rape, sexual assault and having sex with a mentally impaired person at his Dublin home on June 12, 2013. The jury was not required to deliberate on the third count if it convicted of rape. The victim's family wept and hugged as the guilty verdict came in. Referring to the victim and her family, the judge said that the case was an example of how "very bad things can happen to very good people". Mr Justice Hunt heard the victim's family want the matter dealt with as soon as possible. He set a sentence date for January 18, 2016, and said that he hopes the authorities will deport Ellahi after his sentence is complete.