Man in Bolton rape trial says ‘Satan took over’ trying vodka

Sultani Bakatash, 29, is accused of raping the two girls, both 14, after picking them up in Bolton town centre and taking them back to his flat in Middle Hulton in December last year.

As a trial at Bolton Crown Court entered its third week Bakatash himself took to the witness box to answer questions through an interpreter speaking Dari, a dialect spoken in Afghanistan.

Dressed in a black suit with a white open-neck shirt, Bakatash took questions from his barrister Umar Shezhad on how he had met the first of the two girls.

He said they first met outside McDonald’s on Knowsley Street around three months before the alleged rapes, when the girl had been with an older woman who asked him to buy food.

The trial opened at Bolton Crown Court (Image: Phil Taylor)

Bakatash said: “She said she was 19 but the lady who was with her uttered something like 15 or 16 which is why I refused.”

But he said that he told the girl that he had no money either in cash or on his card and would maybe buy her something to eat another time.

He claimed that the girl had helped him buy sugar at the supermarket, given that he had been mistakenly buying flour.

Bakatash had previously told the jury of six men and six women that before coming to the UK in 2022 he had worked for the British military for seven years in Afghanistan.

He said that the return of the Taliban meant he had been forced to leave his home country.

Bakatash said that on December 6 last year he noticed that the girl appeared to be screenshotting posts of his on Snapchat.

He told the court “my rank in Afghanistan was very high” and that he had photographs of himself in an aeroplane, with armoured vehicles and with bodyguards.

In a lengthy breakdown of what he claimed happened that day Bakatash claimed to have met the two girls in a churchyard in the town centre.

He said their demeanour was “very happy, laughing, giggling” and that the first of the two girls asked him to buy them drinks.

Bakatash said: “She did mention drink but I assumed she meant Monster or Red Bul or something like that.”

But he said the girls guided him to buy them three bottles of vodka after going around various shops and that the first of the two girls helped him speak to the shopkeeper.

He denied having told the girls to either turn their mobile phones off or to put them in aeroplane mode.

Pressed by Mr Shezhad on why he had bought the girls alcohol, Bakatash said: “Because I had given my word I would buy them food, I think they had been very helpful to me, I was just trying to keep my word.”

When Mr Shezhad asked why he had taken the girls to his flat on Georgina Court, he said: “Because in was near my house and in my culture when somebody says they want to come to your house you don’t say no.”

Bakatash claimed that on arriving at his flat, they played music and danced, saying the girls were “very happy, laughing, telling jokes, taking selfies”.

He denied asking them to turn their phones off or put their hoods up on the way into the flat.

He said that the girls had been preparing and drinking vodka mixed with diet Coca-Cola and that having never drunk alcohol before in his life he tried it for the first time that night.

Bakatash said: “I don’t know what to say but I think Satan took over me and I took the bottle and had a drink.”

He said the vodka had been sour, which he disliked, and that the girls told him he had been drinking it wrong before mixing further drinks for him.

Pressed further by Mr Shezhad on the atmosphere at the flat, Bakatash said: “Music was playing, everybody was laughing, was very good, joking with each other.”

But he said that he then felt sick and dizzy and had lost consciousness at points.

Bakatash claimed to have drunk between five and six drinks in the living room of his flat and that everyone involved had drunk around the same amount.

Moving on to whether he had any distinctive marks on his body, Bakatash told Mr Shezhad he was allergic to heat and prone to rashes.

He said he had an injury on his foot from the gym and an injury to his right wrist caused by a hand grenade with a bullet hole on his leg.

Bakatash, of Georgina Court, Middle Hulton, denies two counts of rape of a girl aged under 16, one count of sexual assault, and two count of assault by penetration.

The trial, before Judge Kenderick Horne, continues.