A POLITICAL refugee who raped a drunken 20-year-old student in a flat in Newport was jailed for four and a half years at Cardiff crown court yesterday.

Fast food worker Bulent Canbay, 27, took advantage of the woman said Mr Justice Pitchford.

When she collapsed backwards onto a mattress on the floor of a flat in Chepstow Road he had sex without her consent, he said. Canbay, of Hazlitt Close, Newport, was found guilty of rape by a majority verdict of ten to two.

The jury took four hours and 45 minutes to reach verdicts. He was found not guilty of kidnapping the woman with intent to carry out a sexual assault.

Hairdresser Tacim Aksu, 22, of Chepstow Road, was found not guilty of rape and kidnap.

The judge told a weeping Canbay: "The girl drank to excess and it was foolish, that made her vulnerable. You knew it made her vulnerable and you took advantage of her to take her to a flat."

He said it was plain that she had been severely affected by the experience.

"I wonder how many years before the memory recedes. "She had the courage to face you and heard the allegation that she was not a victim but the instigator of the sexual activity.

"The jury rejected that suggestion which will provide her with some consolation.

"I recognise you have ruined your hard earned family life." Prosecutor Tim Evans said that on the night of January 12 the woman went on a "student night out" with college friends and became extremely drunk.

When she went to get a taxi home she met the two defendants and was driven to a flat in Chepstow Road where Canbay raped her. She was later found on the pavement in Chepstow Road, rolled up into a ball, shouting "don't touch me, don't touch me".

Canbay said the student went with them voluntarily and he had sex with her full consent. He said she told him it was her intention to sleep with both of them.

When he stopped having sex with her she became intimidating, said Canbay.

"I made a mistake but I didn't rape her," he said. Aksu denied any sexual contact and said the only time he touched her was to steady her because she was so drunk.

Canbay's counsel, Mark Wolseley, said: "The incident was not protracted but was very brief indeed. No violence was used, there was no injury, no humiliation or degrading features."

He said that the defendant was a Kurd who had "been through things in Turkey that they go through".

He came to Britain and was granted asylum three years ago since when he had worked regularly and was good to his partner and a good father. He was ordered on release to register as a sex offender for life.