• Man followed 16-year-old into toilets before locking the door and subjecting her to a serious sexual assault.

• Shahab Uddin denied attempted rape but jury unanimously returned a guilty verdict.

• Restaurant worker Uddin, 38, jailed for seven years and faces deportation.

A MAN has been jailed for seven years for a sex attack on a teenager on a train bound for Weymouth.

Restaurant worker Shahab Uddin, aged 38, was sentenced to seven years in prison for an offence of attempted rape following a trial for Dorchester Crown Court.

The charge related to an incident on the evening of July 29 last year on the service between Bristol Temple Meads and Weymouth.

The court was told the girl, who is now 17 but was 16 at the time of the alleged offence, got on the train at Westbury just before 9.30am and was due to get off at Castle Cary.

She told police that when she got on the two-carriage train she noticed a man "staring" at her and smiling.

The girl said he "kept smiling at me" and was trying to sign something to her but she could not work out what he was trying to say.

She said she got up to answer a phone call she was expecting and went into the toilet.

The girl said shortly after Uddin followed her and came into the toilet.

She said he pulled his trousers down and exposed himself to her.

The alleged victim said: "I was trying to push him away."
The girl said he put his arms around her and attempted to rape her.

She said she eventually managed to unlock the door to the toilet and ran out.

The girl got off at her stop shortly afterwards and Uddin was arrested at an Indian restaurant in Weymouth where he was working on August 4.

Uddin claimed that the girl had been making suggestive signals to him during the journey and had gestured for him to follow her to the toilet, where they had engaged in consensual sexual contact.

However, a jury saw through Uddin’s story and unanimously found him guilty of one count of attempted rape following a five-day trial.

In addition to his seven-year term, Bangladeshi national Uddin, of Wick Road, Bristol, was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life and given a deportation order.

Detective Constable Richard Day, from the British Transport Police, said: “We are satisfied with the lengthy sentence handed to Uddin, who has shown no remorse whatsoever for cornering a vulnerable girl and subjecting her to a terrifying assault.

“He would have been in no doubt as to the distress he was causing her and it is testament to the girl’s strength of character throughout this whole process that the correct verdict has been reached.

“Thankfully, assaults of this severity are unusual on the rail network but we hope this case gives other victims the confidence to come forward, knowing they will be taken seriously, treated with respect and that we will do everything we can to get the justice they so rightly deserve.”