A 24-year-old Ghanian asylum seeker has been sentenced to three years and two months in prison after admitting to having raped a 15-year-old girl last summer in the German city of Duisburg.

According to the prosecutors the 24-year-old Ghanian, who had been living in an asylum home, had raped the 15-year-old girl in August of last year, reports Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.

Initially, the man refused to admit he attacked the young girl, claiming that the incident never happened. He then admitted there had been sexual relations between him and his victim which he claimed had been consensual. Later on in the trial, the asylum seeker admitted to the court that he had raped her.

The court was told that the Ghanian had stumbled upon the girl and her friends in an empty school building on Gartenstrasse, or Garden Street, in the Neumühl district of the city. The man harassed the girl and her friends and after one of the girls escaped out of a window he held on to the 15-year-old victim, forcibly undressed her, and raped her.

The lawyer for the Ghanian claimed that the man had a “high sex drive” and so lost control of his actions. The defence of uncontrollable sexual urges bears similarity to that used by an Iraqi migrant in Austria who claimed to have had a “sexual emergency” when he raped a young boy at a Vienna swimming pool.

The attacker’s lawyer noted that the Ghanian now felt regret over the attack, though many in the court expressed outrage because the victim was described to have been either a virgin or was very sexually inexperienced at the time of the attack.

Migrant perpetrated sex crimes are an issue in Germany and is a growing problem in neighbouring Austria. According to reports, the number of sex attacks carried out by men of a migrant background has increased 133 per cent of the past year.

New Year’s Eve in Austria also saw a spate of sex attacks occurring across the country, but most notably in Innsbruck. So far, 18 victims have come forward claiming to have been sexually assaulted by a gang of migrants in the centre of Innsbruck on December 31st. Police have since arrested six Afghan asylum seekers in connection with the attacks and say there may have been more men involved who are still at large.