A married barman who raped a teenage girl in bushes near an Oban music and conference venue has been jailed.
Anouar Ben Said, 36, targeted his 19-year-old victim after she had left a pub where she had been drinking with colleagues for six hours.
The off-duty hotel worker, originally from Tunisia, attacked her and raped her on the ground in bushes near the car park of The Corran Halls, a court heard.
He failed to use a condom and his DNA was found inside her.
Ben Said, lately of Blackpool but of Oban at the time of the incident – which happened in the early hours of August 13, 2021 – denied rape and claimed consent.
But witnesses told the High Court in Stirling they saw the teenage girl come “sprinting” out of the bushes, receiving scratches to her face from twigs and branches as she fled through the undergrowth. She then collapsed “distraught” when she found people she knew in the car park and later told what had happened.
Judge Lord Weir told jurors they were entitled to take evidence of her distress into account.
After a three-day trial, the jury of eight men and seven women took under three hours to find Ben Said guilty of rape. The verdict was unanimous.
Lord Weir revoked bail and deferred sentence until January 12 2024 at the High Court in Edinburgh.
He told Ben Said he had been found guilty of “a very serious and concerning rape”.
Prosecutor David Logan described the girl’s ordeal as “a nightmare”.
Andrew Crosbie, defending, reserved mitigation.