This is what happens when the prison system becomes a joke!

I'm so furiously angry at this report from England that I can hardly see straight.

A Romanian immigrant brutally raped a young woman on a railway station so he could be sent to prison for a bed, food and English lessons at the same jail as his brother.

Ali Majlat, who has a string of convictions in his home country and the UK, punched, kicked and dragged his 21-year-old victim along the ground as she waited for a train home after seeing friends.

She briefly escaped his clutches but he caught up with her in an underpass at Wakefield Kirkgate station in West Yorkshire and subjected her to a sustained attack which was captured on CCTV.

He then stole her mobile phone, purse and a bracelet before fleeing. When he was caught five days later he admitted his guilt and claimed he did it so he would end up in jail.

‘When I was on the railway station I thought I should rape this lady in order to get a place to eat and sleep and learn the English language,’ he told a psychologist.

His bizarre explanation for the attack emerged at Leeds Crown Court on Monday when Majlat pleaded guilty to rape and robbery.

On hearing it, Judge Alistair McCallum was so surprised that he asked the defence barrister to repeat it to be sure he had heard correctly.

Hours before the attack Majlat had tried to visit his brother in Wakefield prison where he is serving a jail term for rape and attempted murder. However, he was turned away because he did not have the correct paperwork.

The 35-year-old later told police that he attacked the girl in the hope he would be sent to the same prison as his brother.

‘All he seems concerned about is being in the same jail as his brother,’ a police source said. ‘When he was told that he would be deported after his sentence, he seemed horrified.

‘He doesn’t want to go back to Romania. He just wants to stay in a British jail.’

Majlat, who is on remand in Leeds prison, entered the UK shortly after being released from a Romanian jail last June after serving time for theft and attempted robbery.

In September he was jailed for eight weeks by Horseferry Road magistrates in London for burglary. But he was not deported after being freed because he was not deemed ‘high risk’.

Convicts from the European Economic Area - members of the EU, plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland - can be removed only if they are highly likely to reoffend and if they present a ‘sufficiently serious threat’.

During the case, Judge McCallum demanded to know what procedures there were to stop criminals entering the country. EU citizens with a valid passport can travel to Britain without prior warning.

Even in cases where officials are aware of serious convictions, visitors cannot automatically be turned away.

After raping his victim at 8.30pm on October 12 last year, Majlat fled to London. But police were able to track him down to a homeless hostel because he was still using his victim’s mobile phone.

He was closely examined by doctors and psychologists, who insisted he was sane. During the court hearing, Judge McCallum said he was considering imposing a life sentence.

He asked the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate Majlat’s criminal history in Romania, particularly sexual offences, before he sentences him on April 6.

British jails (and jail sentences) have long been a joke. It's a very unusual convict who serves more than half to three-fifths of his sentence, and even then, much of it will be in a so-called 'open' prison, where he's allowed visits (sometimes unsupervised) to family, shopping expeditions, etc. The concept of actual hard-time 'punishment' is no longer applied in almost all prisons there.

I guess the British are entitled to elect a government that will countenance such folly . . . but when it gets so bad that a scumbag like this deliberately rapes a young girl, probably ruining the rest of her life, just so that he can get free room and board, and English lessons, in jail, there couldn't possibly be clearer evidence that the prison system is broken beyond repair.

I suggest bringing back rock-breaking, the treadmill and the prison hulks. For inmates like Ali Majlat, they're long overdue.

Peter