05/11/2009

Trafficking Rapist Imprisoned

A Hungarian human trafficker who raped and beat his girlfriend and forced her to work as a prostitute has been sentenced to 16 years for sex trafficking offences.

The jury at Blackfriars Crown Court heard how Bertalan Lakatos, 27, had been in a relationship with the 35-year-old mother-of-one for a year when the pair fell in to financial difficulties.

In 2006, Lakatos travelled with his girlfriend to Austria and the Netherlands where he put her to work as a prostitute.

Between November 2006 until April 2008 he regularly beat and raped her and took all of her earnings.

Lakatos eventually brought his girlfriend to the UK where he forced her to work as a prostitute on the streets of London.

He was arrested in April last year after she made an allegation of assault against her boyfriend to the police.

The Metropolitan Police Service's (MPS) Human Trafficking Team later charged Lakatos with two counts of rape and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Detective Inspector Steve Wilkinson, head of the MPS's Human Trafficking Team, said he hoped the judicial outcome of this case would encourage other victims to come forward.

"It is only by the bravery and courage of those who have experienced such a horrendous crime coming forward that we are able to secure results like today's."

Lakatos was found guilty by the jury of five of the seven counts against him.

He was sentenced to five years for two counts of trafficking into the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation and received two and a half years for two counts of controlling prostitution.

Lakatos was also handed down a 12 month sentence for actual bodily harm.

All sentences are to run concurrently.

(PR/BMcc)

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