Rapist jailed after New Year’s Day Whitechapel attack

A man who raped a woman in Whitechapel in the early hours of New Year’s Day has been jailed.

Awet Solomon, a 24-year-old from Bath Road, West Drayton, near Heathrow Airport, was caught within 36 hours of the victim’s report to police.

He was charged with rape and also pleaded guilty in court to charges of strangulation and actual bodily harm, according to City of London Police.

The woman got off a bus in Mansell Street and walked towards Whitechapel High Street when she was dragged into an alley, beaten and then subjected to “a violent rape by Solomon” who was a stranger to her, police said.

But she later showed “tremendous courage and strength to come forward” to report “such an abhorrent incident”, Det Supt Richard Waight said.

Solomon was sentenced to six years and nine months imprisonment at Inner London Crown Court.