‘Lost’ woman in Birmingham raped by two thugs after asking for help

A pair of evil thugs have been jailed for a total of 31 years for raping a woman who was abducted off the streets after she became lost in a city.

Fabrice Mpata, 39, was driving in the Winson Green area of Birmingham when he encountered the victim who asked him for help. 

A court heard he lured her into his car on the premise he was going to take her to her home - but took her to a friend's house instead where he raped her twice. 

He then "offered her up" to pal Rigobert Ngambe, 45, who also raped her before she was left abandoned in the street. A passing taxi driver took the terrified woman to hospital and officers were later able to track down the vile pair using DNA evidence.

Mpata, of Saltley, was previously convicted of two counts of rape following a trial and was jailed for 16 years on Friday (April 12). Ngambe, from Hockley, was sentenced to 15 years after being found guilty of one charge of rape at Birmingham Crown Court. 

The court heard the middle-aged African woman had become separated from other family members when she came across Mbata on August 20, 2022. 

Get the latest headlines delivered straight to your inbox with BirminghamWorld’s free newsletter Sentencing, Judge Avik Mukherjee said: "She had extremely limited English, if any English at all. She was stranded in Birmingham, lost and alone. 

"What happened to her? Over the next hours, many hours, both of you humiliated her, degraded her and used her vulnerability against her. She needed help. She could not find her way back to her sister-in-law's home. 

"She asked for help and she was desperate and she saw you, (Mpata), an African man who may have been sympathetic towards her and she could trust to help her. 

"What you did was the contrary of that. What you did, rather than helping her, was to help yourself. What you did was to satisfy your sexual needs. You promised to take her home but what you did was to take her to a friend's house. She was crying and repeatedly saying no. 

"Ngambe, I am satisfied, knew that you had raped her and knew that you were taking her to his house so that he could rape her. She was stripped naked and crying and you Ngambe raped her despite her pleas not to do so.

"When you were contacted by her brother and sister-in-law you effectively negotiated her return rather than giving her family some peace, rather than saying where she was or where they could collect her. 

"In the early hours of the morning she was left stranded, suffering from the immediate effects of her ordeal, while you two vanished into thin air leaving her to fend for herself." 

Judge Mukherjee said after being arrested the pair had told a number of lies and claimed the victim had consented to sex. Describing both men as "unpredictable" he added: "It is difficult to imagine a case of more seriousness than this."

Donal Maguire, defending Mpata, said he had come from a difficult background after his mum was murdered when he was a child and his dad was distanced from him. He said he was of previous good character and still had the support of his partner. 

Tom Kenning, defending Ngambe, said that it had been out of character and an "aberration". He said since coming to the UK in 2001 he had worked hard and obtained a variety of jobs, including working as a delivery driver and on a local radio station.