Latest Teesside headlines straight to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A taxi driver who claimed he was the son of a Taliban leader has been jailed for 18 years for violent rapes.

Ghairat Khan, 26, came to Teesside after he was threatened with deportation in an immigration age row.

He staged a vanishing act after the authorities did not believe his claim that he was a child when he came into the UK in 2005.

Prosecutor Shaun Dodds told Teesside Crown Court that Khan raped his victims a number of times.

He later threatened them by phone and warned he had recruited people who would follow them.

Khan, of Stockton , claimed to be from Afghanistan and only 15 when he arrived in the UK to qualify him for asylum - but the authorities believe that he is from Pakistan and that many of his stories are fanciful.

Police arrested him at Durham Tees Valley Airport as he returned to the UK from Afghanistan on another occasion.

At his five-day trial last month he was assisted by a Pashtu interpreter, and he insisted that the distressed women were lying.

Khan’s age was disputed during the trial. He claimed he was 26 but it emerged he had two aliases with earlier dates of birth.

It was revealed that Birmingham immigration authorities had disbelieved his claim to be 15 in 2005 and said they would deport him via Italy.

After this, he disappeared, before going on to commit the attacks on Teesside.

Mr Dodds read out statements from the victims, one of whom said she had been left “petrified”.

The first victim said: “I will never get over what he has done to me. I can’t form any relationship. I could not let it happen to me again.”

The second victim said: “I am suffering and I will suffer for the rest of my life.”

Jonnie Walker, defending, said that Khan had never served a prison sentence before, adding: “Clearly the defendant will learn a very, very harsh lesson.”

The judge told Khan that he was a violent individual.

Judge Howard Crowson said it was “clearly awful” for one of the victims to give evidence about her ordeal.

“You were plainly aware of the religious significance of the act,” he said.

“With the second woman the rapes were equally awful.”

Khan had also worked as a car mechanic for a garage in Thornaby before becoming a self-employed repairer and a taxi driver.

Khan, formerly of Bowesfield Lane, Stockton, was jailed for 18 years, ordered to register as a sex offender for life, and given an indefinite Sexual Offence’s Prevention Order.