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An illegal immigrant and registered sex offender who evaded deportation following a five-year prison term has been convicted of rape after attacking a woman on a night out in Newport, South Wales. Radiet Meles, a 35-year-old former soldier originating from Eritrea, faces a lengthy custodial sentence at Cardiff Crown Court after a jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts for rape and assault by beating following a five-day trial. The conviction has placed serious scrutiny on UK border enforcement and post-release offender supervision after judicial warnings regarding his deportation were never enforced.
The court heard that Meles, of West Park Road, Newport, attacked his victim in March after encountering her during an evening out in the city. Officers from Gwent Police were summoned to the scene following emergency calls reporting an ongoing assault. Meles was subsequently detained, charged, and tried before a jury at Cardiff Crown Court, where he formally denied both counts through a Tigrinya interpreter before being convicted of all offences.
The verdict comes seven years after Meles was handed a five-year prison sentence in February 2019 for the attempted rape of an unconscious victim. During that trial at Cardiff Crown Court, prosecutor Heath Edwards told jurors that on 13 August 2018, a woman was targeted at a Newport house party following an evening of socialising in the city centre. The court learned that the victim had no recollection of the event until she regained consciousness in the back of an emergency ambulance, where an attending police officer informed her that an assault had occurred.
Sentencing Meles in 2019, Judge Christopher Vosper QC highlighted the predatory nature of the assault, stating that the defendant had identified a heavily incapacitated victim and actively sought to exploit her condition. Daily Dazzling Dawn understands that Judge Vosper formally issued a deportation warning during the proceedings, telling Meles that he was almost certain to be transferred directly to an immigration removal facility upon completing his custodial term to await an expulsion order from the Home Secretary.
Despite the formal warning from the bench, Meles was not removed from the United Kingdom upon concluding his sentence. Court records show that the 35-year-old entered the UK clandestinely in 2015, having concealed himself inside a freight lorry travelling from France through the Channel Tunnel. Following an initial two-day detention period in Dover, immigration authorities permitted him to travel to Cardiff before he established residency in Newport, where he found employment in a car wash facility, a food packaging site, and an Amazon distribution centre.
Daily Dazzling Dawn learned that following his discharge from prison, Meles returned unmonitored to Newport streets, culminating in his arrest in March. Following the latest guilty verdict, presiding judicial officers at Cardiff Crown Court remanded Meles in custody and adjourned proceedings for formal sentencing scheduled for November, warning him that he faces another significant period of incarceration.
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