A DEPORTED illegal immigrant who slipped back into the UK and then carried out rape attacks on two women faced 12 years in jail last night.

Three days after evading Customs officers, the Iraqi dragged an 18-year-old girl down a North-East alley at 2am and tried to rape her.

A passer-by heard her screams and saw Aram Ali pinning her to the ground.

Ali fled the scene off Yarm Lane, Stockton, leaving his blood on her face and clothing.

Five months later, he was arrested with two other Iraqis for raping a teenage prostitute in a street in Derby, and his DNA was matched with the earlier attack.

Ali was jailed for nine years last month after a trial at Derby Crown Court, and yesterday he was given three years running consecutively after he pleaded guilty to the attempted rape in November 2004.

Mystery surrounded his age because he told immigration officials that he was 23, but claimed at Teesside Crown Court he was only 19.

Christopher Attwooll, prosecuting, said Ali and the girl had been in the Zanzibar Bar, Stockton, before he pounced on her as she walked home alone.

Mr Attwooll said: "He grabbed her by the hair and forced her into a side street."

He then forced her onto her stomach and ripped off her clothing before trying to rape her.

Ali, who had been staying at a friend's flat in Stockton, was not interviewed until last April, in Glen Parva prison, Leicester.

The court heard that Ali and his friends had taken it in turns to rape the prostitute in Derby after refusing to pay for sex.

Dan Cordey, for Ali, said his client would be deported again after completing his sentences - "the better for all concerned".

He added: "His stay in this country has not been a happy one."

Judge Michael Taylor told Teesside Crown Court that Ali came to the UK as an illegal immigrant in 2003 and was deported that December.

He returned in November 2004, and within days carried out "this horrific sexual attack upon a perfectly innocent, law-abiding and decent young girl, a gross sexual act against her".

The judge said that if he had been passing sentence for that alone the term would have been seven years. But because Ali was already serving nine years it was a consecutive sentence of three years.

Ali, of no fixed address, pleaded not guilty to raping her, which was accepted by the Crown.