Related Articles
An Amazon delivery driver has been warned to face a long jail sentence after being found guilty of raping a teenager in an alleyway as she walked home from a night club.
Gheorghe Bertlef stalked the 18-year-old through the streets of Exeter before manhandling her into the alley off Hoopern Lane and demanding sex.
The victim said no when he asked her for a kiss and for sex and told him she wanted to go home but was too terrified to resist as he carried out the 30 minute attack.
He was found guilty after a jury at Exeter Crown Court rejected his claims that the woman had not only agreed to sex but had enjoyed it and thanked him afterwards.
Bertlef, who was working as a Royal Mail sorting office worker at the time, had spent weeks walking around Exeter in the middle of the night looking for lone women.
He approached a group of female Exeter University students just two hours before carrying out the rape on November 13 last year and his behaviour alarmed them so much that one took a picture of him on her phone.
He was arrested just over a week later when police spotted him stalking two more women who were walking on their own late at night.
(Image: Nick Irving)
Bertlef, aged 32, of Pinhoe Road, Exeter, denied rape and attempted rape of the same victim but was found guilty by unanimous verdict after two hours of deliberation.
He was remanded in custody by Judge Robert Linford, who ordered the probation service to carry out an assessment of the danger which he poses to the public.
He told him: “You have been convicted of these two offences and I will sentence you on October 23. I order there is a report to deal with the issue of dangerousness and whether you pose a danger to the public.
“Be under no illusion, you will be facing a very substantial sentence of imprisonment.”
During a three day trial, the prosecution said he was walking around Exeter before carrying out the attack on the victim, who was a total stranger.
She told him she did not want to kiss him or have sex but he took her down an alleyway and made her give him oral sex. He also tried to have vaginal sex unsuccessfully on two occasions.
She told the jury she was so frightened that she froze and went along with what he demanded but told him repeatedly that she wanted to be allowed home.
She said he did not restrain her physically but blocked her when she tried to get out of the alleyway.
Bertlef said he worked for the Royal Mail at the time but is now an Amazon delivery driver. He moved to Britain from Romania in 2016 and lives with his sister and her family in Exeter.
He was assisted in the dock by both an interpreter and an intermediary because he had issues with understanding.
He said he went out on the night looking for a girlfriend and was carrying a condom because a woman he approached on an earlier occasion had refused to have sex without one.
He said he walked beside her and asked her if she was okay. He put his arm around her to protect her because it was cold and then asked if she would kiss him and she said yes.
He said he asked if she wanted to have sex and she replied that she ought to go home but that he assumed she consented because she did not resist or ask him to stop, other than pushing him away when he tried to have sex for the second time.
He said: “I did not think she was scared. She did not try to move away from me. Her mood and behaviour did not change. We were walking along and saw a small alleyway and told her to go that way. She did not do or say anything.
“She undid the poppers on her body suit and I understood she want to have sex. She told me ‘no-one is as nice as you’.
“I thought she was consenting because she kissed me back. I was not aggressive towards her. I did not threaten her in any way. She let me talk to her. She did not oppose.
“She liked it. I asked her several times if she liked it and she said yes. I did not want her to be scared. I was trying to be polite. We both got dressed and she said ‘you’re welcome, with pleasure’.”
