Covid worker Abdulfatah Awow demanded sex from nurse

A man pretending to be a health officer during lockdown told a quarantining nurse that she would need to have sex with him or risk deportation.

A Melbourne man who pretended to be a health officer in order to threaten a young nurse to perform sexual acts on him has been sentenced to three years and six months in jail.

Abdulfatah Omar Awow, 26, pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court on Tuesday to charges of aggravated burglary and attempting to procure sexual acts by threat for the offending, which was committed in July last year.

Awow, who lives with his family in Carlton after they fled Mogadishu in Somalia when he was a child, was working for a company contracted by the Victorian Department of Health to check on isolating Victorians and provide information to contact tracers.

On July 14, Awow called the victim, who was living in Australia on a student visa, as part of his job to check on her quarantining status.

Awow took a photo of the victim’s personal details, including her address, and called her at the end of his shift.

He arrived at 9.20pm purporting to be a department, was let into the victim’s house and proceeded to take notes and photos inside.

Awow told the victim that recent isolation requirements had changed and she was breaking the law and he could have her deported back to her native Taiwan.

Abdulfatah Awow wanted a nurse to perform sexual acts on him.

However, he told the victim that she could stay if she “made him happy,” the court was told.

Awow asked the victim to perform sexual acts, both of which were denied, before taking her phone and translating a message into traditional Chinese that told her she would be protected if she acquiesced.

He told her that other women had agreed to his demands.

In sentencing, Judge Angela Ellis said Awow’s offending amounted to a “gross breach of trust” and said the public was entitled to believe their personal information would be protected.

“You preyed upon a vulnerable young woman,” Ms Ellis said.

The court was told the victim now suffered from PTSD and had relocated to Sydney as a result of the ordeal.

The court was previously told that prior to the offending, Awow was using cocaine and benzodiazepine daily.

But friends of Awow told the court that he had been influential in the local community and had a strong record of volunteering and organising community events.

An imam described Awow to the court as an “honourable individual.”

Awow will be eligible for parole in two years.