A Deliveroo worker jailed for 21 years at Isleworth Crown Court has been convicted of raping a woman he found semi-conscious at a London bus stop. Salem Rekoub, 28, was found guilty of three counts of rape and two counts of assaulting a female by penetration following the attack in July 2024.
The jury heard that the victim, a woman in her 40s, had been out with friends and got off the bus feeling unwell on her way home. She passed out on the pavement at the bus stop. Prosecutor Patricia May told the court: “She passed out on the pavement and it is there when the defendant, a complete stranger, found her.”
“He leant his Deliveroo bike against a wall and dragged her down a side road which was away from the public,” Ms May said. “While she was there, he pulled her between two cars, and as she was shifting in and out of consciousness, he committed all the offences against her.” Rekoub had dragged her by the arms, out of sight of the public.
The attack lasted 17 minutes. The woman drifted in and out of consciousness while Rekoub told her: “You need to be quiet.” She was left with 33 bruises across her body and has suffered seizures since the attack. Ms May described the case as “very upsetting”.
She was taken by ambulance to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in Fulham.
Deliveroo worker jailed after lies to 999 and hospital search
After the attack, Rekoub called 999 and told operators “a pack of lies” — claiming the woman had had too much to drink and he was simply a concerned passer-by. He gave police a fake name. He then followed the ambulance to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where he continued to look for his victim.
CCTV shown to the jury captured him walking the hospital corridors, checking the emergency unit “to get to the woman again”. When confronted by hospital staff, he claimed he was “here to find someone”. The victim managed to whisper what had happened to paramedics, and Rekoub was arrested by the Metropolitan Police nine days later.
Rekoub stood trial at Isleworth Crown Court, where the jury found him guilty of three counts of rape and two counts of assaulting a female by penetration. The prosecution said he had dragged the victim from the bus stop to a side road away from the public, pulling her between two cars while she drifted in and out of consciousness. The court heard the attack lasted 17 minutes and left the woman with 33 bruises.
Victim impact statement
In an impact statement read to the court, the woman said: “This has destroyed my life and I am not the same person.” She added: “It has killed me and made me feel worthless. I tried to take my own life because I felt like I could not cope.”
“I have been left in a constant state of fear. I couldn’t escape because he told me to be quiet and had his hands around my throat,” she said. “I have been left completely numb and disassociated. I have begun to have seizures and my speech has become slurred.”
Ms May told the court there had been “incomplete checks” as to whether Rekoub should have been working at all, as he was in Britain on a tourist visa. His barrister, Brinder Soora, said he had escaped violence in Algeria and was “eager to find a relationship again”. The judge sentenced him to 21 years and branded him a public danger.
London Streets has previously reported on the fatal stabbing of a 28-year-old man on Lloyd Baker Street in Clerkenwell, and on Met detectives submitting further evidence to the CPS in connection with convicted rapist Zhenhao Zou.
