A judge at Nottingham Crown Court told 28-year-old Yaser Umar he was guilty of a 'truly appalling offence' against a young woman.

Umar, an Iraqi Kurd asylum seeker, failed to attend his trial in January last year but was convicted in his absence.

His victim, a 19-year-old student from Mansfield, had been to the Liquid nightclub in July 2006 with friends.

She accepted a lift home from Umar, of Hatton Court, Mansfield. But he drove her to an isolated spot near Sherwood Golf Course and twice raped her.

The judge commended a police officer who was in the area dealing with a burglary when he noticed the headlights of Umar's car and blocked the vehicle in.

Judge Michael Stokes, the recorder of Nottingham, jailed him for seven years for the rapes and a further year for failing to answer bail.

The judge said when the young woman became aware she was being driven in the wrong direction she was 'very frightened and cried'.