Ruhi Dagdanasar appeals sentence for raping teenager after Auburn school formal party

Two men who held a teenager captive, fed her drugs and gang raped her after her school formal are appealing their ‘manifestly excessive’ sentences.

Two convicted rapists who held a teenage girl captive while they raped and drugged her in a Glenwood house for 14 hours have made an attempt to appeal their 26-year sentences.

Ruhi Dagdanasar, 51, and a 40-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared via video link at the Supreme Court of Criminal Appeal on Tuesday, almost two years after they received sentences for raping the 18-year-old north shore student.

The victim had been at a school formal after-party in Auburn where she got heavily drunk and was waiting at Auburn train station in November 2016 when the men’s friend Mustafa Yucebasoglu allegedly lured her into a car she believed was an Uber.

The court heard he allegedly drove her to the double storey Glenwood home after 4am where the men laced her drinks with GHB and forced her to smoke methamphetamine (ice) through a pipe.

The court heard about how they took turns raping the young woman multiple times and captured the horrific ordeal on four videos taken with an iPhone.

At one point when forcing her to take the drugs one of the men said: “This stuff makes you so horny, we are all so horny.’’

Ruhi Dagdanasar was charged with raping an 18-year-old woman at Glenwood in 2016. Picture: Facebook

The victim fled the house at 6pm the following day when she texted her sister to alert them of the sexual assault.

Defence barrister Philip Boulton said there was insufficient evidence to prove on the second charge that the assault on the young woman was aggravated and there were moments when she consented.

Mr Boulton told the court the 26-year sentence imposed on his client, who cannot be named, was “an unusually severe sentence’’.

“The sentence imposed was manifestly excessive,’’ he said.

“My client’s sentence is the most severe sentence of anyone who’s been prosecuted for offences of this type.’’

Judge Peter Johnson said multiple child sex offences carried long sentences “but at the same time there are features of this conduct which doesn’t seem to arise in other cases’’ and the men who were “not young in their early 20s” showed no remorse’’.

“These should have been mature, experienced men,’’ he said.

He tried to appeal the sentence by saying there was no evidence of one of his charges of actual bodily harm, with no weapons.

“This was a young woman who was vulnerable but she was not a child,’’ he said.

In her submission, Crown prosecutor Helen Roberts said the victim was too intoxicated to form rational decisions despite the footage showing she agreed when the men had sex with her, asking if she liked it.

“Yes, yes,’’ the victim said.

But Ms Roberts said the comments “do not indicate consent because of her state of substantial intoxication’.

Judge Helen Wilson questioned the defence on the appeal.

“If it was a matter of such significance and it was so startlingly wrong, if this sentence stood out so much … why didn’t the defence counsel pick it up (earlier)?’’

Dagdanasar, who is behind bars at Junee Correctional Centre, will be eligible for parole in 16 years. The co-offender, who is at the Hunter Correctional Centre, will be eligible for parole in 18 years.

A judgment was reserved for the matter.

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