(L-R) Nadia Gubran, Alya Dahshan, and Layla Obad, kidnapped and beat an innocent woman (Picture: Liverpool Echo)
Two women who kidnapped an innocent victim before driving her to a secluded area and beating her have been jailed.
Bitterly jealous Nadia Gubran, 21, plotted to kidnap a nursery nurse after she suspected she had been exchanging Snapchat messages with a man she herself was interested in.
Gubran recruited best friend Alya Dahshan, 21, and Layla Obad, 20, to carry out the ambush at around 6pm on March 21 last year.
The gang tracked the 23-year-old victim to her place of work, and followed her in Gubran’s Volkswagen Golf as she made her way down Hartington Road, Liverpool.
They grabbed her from behind and pulled a hood over her face before dragging her into the car and pinning her to the back seat.
Her phone was seized and she was interrogated by Gubran, who forced her to hand over her PIN.
Prosecutor Michael Scholes said: ‘Gubran in particular was aggressive, calling her a sket and a slag, and she warned her she shouldn’t associate with Arabs, as well as interrogating her about the nature of her relationship with a man called Sol, who she was in contact with.
Nadia Gubran masterminded the assault after growing jealous of her victim (Picture: Liverpool Echo)
‘Gubran was described as really aggressive and intimidating towards the victim, making threats that she knew where she lived and that there were people in the area that would be watching her.’
The gang drove to a secluded, wooded area near Sefton Park Palm House, where the victim was pushed into the bushes and punched and kicked in the head by Gubran and Dahshan.
Obad, who was left behind when the assailants fled the scene, apologised to the victim before also running away.
All three women wept in the dock as mobile phone video footage of the attack, taken by Dahshan, was played to the court. In it, the victim could be seen on the ground in a wooded area, holding up her hands as she was repeatedly punched and kicked.
One of the attackers could be heard shouting at her: ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, f*** off. Chatting s***. Next time don’t f***ing mess with Arabs, alright. D***head. Look at the camera and say it, you won’t mess with Arabs.’
Two further videos, taken at an earlier stage, were also played, showing the victim face-down on the back seat of the car, and being punched by Gubran.
Following the horrific ordeal, the victim sought help from a passer-by, who called a taxi to take her home. She called the police, and when officers attended her house she used her tablet to try to deactivate her missing mobile phone. It was then she noticed she had an Instagram message from a man saying he had found her phone in Sefton Park.
She recruited best friend Alya Dahshan to beat up the victim in a secluded area of parkland (Picture: Liverpool Echo)
The man, James Galvin, was traced, and he told police he had been approached by Obad, who told him she ‘had done a horrible thing’ and begged him for help returning the victim’s phone. Mr Scholes said: ‘It’s clear he had no knowledge of what had happened. As a result, police were able to trace Layla Obad, and afterwards find the other participants, who were also arrested.’
Gubran, a real estate student, initially maintained her innocence, claiming she was at university at the time of the attack.
However, messages retrieved from her phone, sent on March 20 and 21, revealed she and Dahshan had planned the abduction, as they discussed how they could force the victim into their car. One message read: ‘Gloves. Bally (balaclava). Go look for a perfect location. We hunt her down, grab her from behind, and we need someone to hold her in the back.’
All three women eventually pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, and appeared in court today, April 26, for sentence.
Jo Maxwell, defending Gubran, described her as ‘immature’ and said she had ‘an inability to appropriately solve problems’. She has a tight and loving family who are horrified at her actions, she added.
But Judge David Aubrey KC responded: ‘She is an intelligent woman. She is in her second year at university. She knows, most certainly, the difference between right and wrong. She planned what she was doing. I find it difficult to accept that she is an immature woman.’
Eve Salter, defending Dahshan, said: ‘The defendant was 19 at the time. While it’s not submitted to excuse her behaviour, it’s submitted she was immature and naïve at the time. She found herself caught up with her friends and committed acts she wholly regrets.’
Layla Obad avoided jail after apologising to the victim and confessing to the police (Picture: Liverpool Echo)
Carmel Wilde, defending Obad, said the 20-year-old nursing student had expressed genuine remorse for her actions, apologising to the victim and making full admissions to police.
She called attention to the video footage, in which Obad could be heard shouting ‘girls, stop’ in Arabic as Gubran and Dahshan punched and kicked the victim.
Sentencing, Judge Aubrey said: ‘I’m satisfied that this was a pre-planned, premeditated attack by you, Gubran, and you, Dahshan, upon an innocent woman who was literally bundled off the street into a car against her will and thereafter assaulted.
‘You found someone else to assist, Layla Obad. Your victim didn’t know any of you, which could only have exacerbated her anxiety and humiliation.’
He said Gubran was ‘the prime mover, the instigator, and the main protagonist” of the kidnapping, while Dahshan was highly involved. He accepted that Obad was not involved in the planning and had not taken part in the assault on the victim in the woods, and had expressed “sincere remorse and considerable victim empathy’.
He said: “In the case of Gubran and Dashan, I have come to the conclusion that no sentence other than immediate custody is appropriate. In the case of Obad, bearing in mind your role and culpability, the balance falls in favour of suspending the sentence.’
Gubran was sentenced to 20 months in prison, while Dahshan received a 16 month sentence.
Obad was sentenced to 14 months in a young offenders institution, suspended for 18 months.
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