The woman returned home from work last October, where she was followed by 32-year-old John Ashby. He could not distinguish that the woman was not wearing a Muslim hijab, but a Sikh head covering.
When the victim found out that Ashby broke into the house, she hid in the bathroom, where he found her. The man ordered her to take off her clothes and get into the bathtub, where he poured boiling water on her and began to strangle and rape her, the BBC server described.
He thought that the young woman was a Muslim, and during the act he showered her with Islamophobic slurs. Finally, he ran away from the house because he was frightened by the noises outside.
“He turned off the light and said: I just want to have fun with you. You’re a f***ing Muslim bitch. I replied: ‘I’m not a Muslim, I’m a Sikh,'” the woman told the police who were called that day, as the Guardian website recalled.
After a three-day search, the police arrested Ashby, but he did not answer anything during the interrogations. Only when he was shown a picture of his victim did he ask incredulously: “Why isn’t she wearing a hijab?”
Ashby will be sentenced on Friday, and the judge warned him that he was considering a life sentence. “I believe that a foreigner who breaks into a woman’s house, commits these crimes and at the same time shows hostility towards her on the basis of her supposed religious belief, is a dangerous person,” he said.
