A GATECRASHER has been found guilty of raping an Exeter University student at a lockdown breaking party in a hall of residence.

Restaurant worker Adam Mohammed followed a group of students to their flat after seeing them buy alcohol in a convenience store and blagged his way in by claiming to be studying for a Master’s degree and living on campus.

He raped the woman after she was put to bed drunk by friends. She woke up at about 2am to find him on top of her and trying to have sex with her. She froze at first but then pushed him off and fled to a friend’s room.

The party took place in breach of lockdown regulations in March 2021 and was thrown to celebrate one of the flatmates returning to University after previously studying remotely.

Mohammed, aged 23, is a refugee from Sudan who was granted final leave to remain in Britain last year by the Home Office despite the fact that he was already facing this rape charge.

He claimed to be the victim of mistaken identity and sought to explain the presence of his DNA on the victim’s knickers by saying she had put her legs around his neck during a drinking game earlier in the evening.

All of the students who gave evidence at his trial at Exeter Crown Court said there had been no such game.

Mohammed, of New Bridge Street, Exeter, denied rape but was found guilty by a jury.

Judge David Evans adjourned sentence for a probation report and told him: “You will be sentenced to imprisonment in due course.”

He bailed him with a condition not to go to Exeter University or any of its halls of residence.

Miss Emily Cook, prosecuting, said Mohammed and a friend arrived at the party and claimed to be studying for master’s degrees and living on campus. They drank with students and may have taken part in some drinking games.

The victim got very drunk at the party and was put to bed by her friends with a bucket next to her head. They left the door unlocked so they could check on her.

Miss Cook said: “She was asleep when the defendant started to have sex with her, so this was rape. She woke and saw his face and saw he was a black male with short hair.”

Mohammed was the only man at the party matching that description and the victim picked him out during an identification procedure. His DNA was recovered from the gusset of her knickers.

Mohammed told the jury he had been invited to the party by students he met at a convenience store in Exeter. He denied having sex with the woman but said she had run her hands through his hair and hugged him before she was put to bed.

He said he came to Britain aged 16 in October 2016 after having fled from his home city of Omdurman because of civil war and reached France via Libya and Italy. He came to Britain as part of a scheme to resettle under age refugees.

He already had one conviction for an offence of battery, committed outside a nightclub in Exeter in January 2022, when he was granted settled status in June 2022.

A Home Office spokesman said 480 unaccompanied children were admitted to the UK under the 2016 Immigration Act but that permanent leave to remain is only granted after security, criminality and identity checks.

They said: “All asylum applications are considered on their individual merits on a case-by-case basis and in line with current published policy. We do not comment on individual cases.”