A RAPIST has been banned from returning to Darlington or County Durham following his conviction.

Saman Osmanzadeh was branded a 'predatory' sexual deviant when he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for abducting and raping a teenage girl.

The 31-year-old had been prowling the streets of Darlington in his car looking for vulnerable young women to satisfy his depraved needs.

Now he has returned to Teesside Crown Court where he was given an indefinite sexual harm prevention order to curb his behaviour when he is released from custody.

During the hearing, the rapist threw away his chance to have legal representation when he refused to allow his barrister, Julian Goode, to speak on his behalf during the hearing.

Judge Jonathan Carroll told the defendant, who appeared via videolink from HMP Garth, that he is also unable to contact his victim in any way or have unsupervised contact with young women or children.

The court heard how Osmanzadeh picked up the teenager as she was looking for a taxi and took his victim to a friend’s house in Bishop Auckland where he raped her. He then took her back to Darlington and dropped off the distressed teenager at a friend’s house in March this year.

Earlier this month, Judge Carroll sentenced Osmanzadeh to 17 years in prison. He said: “There is no doubt in my mind that on that night she became the victim of a predatory rapist.”