by Cam Lucadou-Wells
A man who detained and repeatedly raped a woman in an apparently abandoned house in central Dandenong has been jailed.
Agwa Obiech, 30, pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to a rolled-up charge of rape.
In February 2021, Obiech, then 26, was with a drinking group in a park about 6pm when he lured the then-40-year-old woman back to his house nearby in King Street.
Inside the vacant house, a seemingly homeless man was sleeping on the front-room floor.
Over about 90 minutes, Obiech kept the victim captive in an empty room and raped her multiple times.
A neighbour later reported hearing a female calling for help, another heard an apparently frightened female yell out “No” three times before there was silence.
Eventually Obiech walked her home, asking her: “Do you know where my baby is?”
The frightened victim said she didn’t know.
“When will we see each other again?” he said.
The next day, Obiech was arrested by police in the park. He has been in remand custody up until his sentencing on 31 October this year.
Judge Fiona Todd noted that the victim was held against her will during the “brutal ordeal” – though he was not charged with false imprisonment.
Nor was he charged with allegedly choking her with his hands.
“Your rape … was enduring and persistent and you continued to physically overwhelm her throughout.”
Obiech later told a psychologist he was heavily intoxicated at the time, sought intimacy and was unaware of consent.
Judge Todd said the latter point was problematic, given Obiech’s five “penetrative acts” were accompanied with further violence as well as physically preventing her from leaving.
Without a victim impact statement, the judge inferred the assault was “absolutely terrifying” for the victim who gave evidence at Obiech’s earlier aborted trial.
“She had her own difficulties, she was vulnerable. I have no doubt that what you did has left her shaken and afraid.”
A heavy drinker and meth user, Agwa’s lengthy criminal history of assaults and dishonesty did not include sexual offences.
At the time he was homeless and wasn’t complying with mental health treatment.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia – though it had no impact with his offending, according to the psychologist’s report.
The South Sudanese refugee had experienced a traumatized, war-torn childhood before arriving in Australia as a 13-year-old.
While in custody, his improved insight, stability and voluntary treatment for his mental illness gave cause for “cautious hope” that the “marks left upon you are not immutuable”.
Judge Todd also noted the “extraordinary” three-and-a-half-year delay for his case and his guilty plea.
Taking the mitigating factors into account, she jailed Obiech for less than the 10-year standard sentence.
He was imprisoned for up to seven-and-a-half years, with a four-and-a-half year non-parole period.
His term includes 1361 days in pre-sentence detention.
