A PERVERT who raped a schoolgirl after inviting her into a hotel room has been jailed for 10 years. Tahir Afzal, 28, of Sherwood Gardens, Barking, lured the 14-year-old to his suite at a guest house in Ilford before forcing her onto the bed and attacking

A PERVERT who raped a schoolgirl after inviting her into a hotel room has been jailed for 10 years.

Tahir Afzal, 28, of Sherwood Gardens, Barking, lured the 14-year-old to his suite at a guest house in Ilford before forcing her onto the bed and attacking her twice, a court heard.

He insisted the girl consented to sex, but a jury convicted him of two charges of rape after a trial.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard that since reporting her ordeal the girl has been bullied at school and received anonymous death threats on her mobile telephone.

Reading the girl's victim impact statement Judge Timothy King said: "She speaks, perhaps unsurprisingly, of the psychological impact that the offence had upon her and somewhat disturbingly about the degree of bullying and threats she received at school."

The girl claimed in one anonymous phone call a man threatened to shoot her.

Jurors heard she had spent the day shopping in Ilford Town Centre with a friend when she was approached by Afzal on August 1, 2008.

He then took the girls in a taxi to a nearby supermarket where he bought booze, then took the victim back to the Cranbrook Hotel in Coventry Road.

The girl believed her friend and others would follow them for a party in Afzal's suite, but no one came, the court heard.

"According to the girl, sexual activity was not within her contemplation," said the judge.

He told Afzal: "She endeavoured to exchange texts with her friend. Then, according to the girl, you pushed her down on to the bed.

"She of course by then was very alarmed. She protested, but found herself being pinned down by you.

"She started to cry - it was thereafter that you proceeded to rape her."

James Sutherland, defending, said Afzal maintained that the sex was consensual and the girl only complained after finding out he was not single.

"When she discovered that he was a father and was in a relationship she reacted in the way that she did," said the barrister.

But Afzal, of Barking, was convicted of two counts of rape.