EFFORTS are to be made to seek a confiscation order against a rapist, who was also found to have been growing cannabis at his home.

Eiraj Zarezadeh, now 50, was jailed for nine years for the rape of a schoolgirl who he invited to his home with an older woman and plied with alcohol, before carrying out the attack, in the early hours of December 24, 2011.

Police investigating the rape allegation also uncovered a cannabis ‘farm’, with £5,000 worth of growing equipment and £11,000 worth of the cultivated drug, when they visited Zarezadeh’s home, in Grange Villa, near Chester-le-Street.

Six months was added to his nine-year prison sentence for cannabis production, which Zarezadeh admitted the day after his arrest.

The prosecution has now been given leave to seek a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) confiscation against Zarazadeh, even though it has exceeded the usual two-year time limit, post conviction, for such action.

Despite objections by Brendan O’Leary, for Zarezadeh, who claimed the prosecution “sat on its hands” regarding the POCA application, Judge Simon Hickey said, given the protracted rape inquiry which took priority, it amounted to “exceptional circumstances”.

The proceeds of crime hearing will now take place, at the court, in the week of October 5.