Court reporter Ted Davenport writes for this title.

A late night prowler has been jailed after he kidnapped a drunken woman and tried to sexually assault her in an alleyway.

Merwais Nasiri spent 75 minutes trying to talk to the semi-conscious female student who was sat on a step opposite the Fever nightclub in Exeter and unable to stand up on her own.

He waited until the road was quiet at 3.30 am and then carried her into a dark alleyway and moving a commercial waste bin to cover the entrance.

The 20-year-old victim was saved by two bouncers who were alerted by a worker at a nearby takeaway who had spotted Nasiri abducting her. They moved the bin and found Nasiri on top of the helpless woman.

CCTV footage showed him with his arm around her, holding her up, and trying to move her twice before he succeeded in manhandling her into the alley. He also told a street pastor who went to check on her welfare that she was fine and he was looking after her.

Police found other CCTV footage from earlier in the evening which showed Nasiri in Gandy Street, High Street, and outside the club apparently waiting to identify a lone and vulnerable woman.

He was stopped before he had a chance to commit any sexual offence but the kidnap has had a massive effect on the victim, who has struggled to complete her university studies and now feels so insecure that she has moved back home and abandoned her original plans for her career.

She had no memory of what had happened to her but was traumatised when she found out and had to undergo medical checks at a sexual assault clinic which she found ‘absolutely horrible intrusive and unpleasant.”

She wrote an impact statement which said: “When I saw the CCTV I was really shocked at the way he rested his head on my shoulder. I felt dirty and disgusted when I saw the alley. When I saw the way he tried to conceal me in the alley I was mortified.

“It has left me feeling violated and abused. There is no excuse for what he did to me. The effect will stay with me for a long time.”

Nasiri, aged 25, of Topsham Road, Exeter, denied kidnap and intending to commit a sexual assault but was found guilty by a jury at Exeter Crown Court at a trial in January.

He was jailed for five and a half years with a four year extended licence by Judge Stephen Climie, who put him on the sex offenders’ register for life and classified him as a dangerous offender.

He praised the courage of the victim and told Nasiri: “This case is not about you. It is about a young woman of 20 who gave evidence before this court which demonstrated not just intelligence and composure but extraordinary dignity.

“She had been drinking and required assistance but that was the last thing on your mind. Having watched the CCTV, the one thing on your mind during that hour and a quarter was sexual activity,”

Mr Joss Ticehurst, prosecuting, said the victim had become detached from a group of friends she had been with in the early hours of July 1 last year and ended up sitting with her head between her legs on a step in Mary Arches Street.

Nasiri sat next to her for 75 minutes and told a street pastor that she did not need help and later carried her into the alley and blocked the entrance with the bin.

Mr Daniel Pawson-Pounds, defending, said Nasiri had a tragic background, having been a shepherd in Afghanistan until his father was killed by the Taliban and he and his mother became refugees.

They moved to France where his mother died in 2022, leading him to move to Britain to seek asylum. He was moved to Exeter and put up in a hotel by the Home Office.

He said there is nothing to suggest Nasiri planned to rape the woman and neither had their clothing undone when the door staff intervened. He had not made any threats at any stage.