Club snapper jailed for sexual assault on Warwick girl

A nightclub photographer who sexually assaulted a Warwick student has been jailed for three years after he was caught when a witness recognised him on facebook. 

Bikramjit Baden, 39, followed his victim home before subjecting her to the sickening assault on her doorstep in Leamington Spa on March 5. The woman had been to a nightclub with a group of fellow university students before leaving her pals at 1.30am and making her way home.

She first spotted Baden at a junction eating takeaway food and as she passed he said: “Hi pretty lady”. The victim ignored him but the pervert started to follow her and made further vile comments.

A court heard Baden then came up behind her and punched her to the head before continuing to rain violent blows on her as she put her key in the front door. The twisted sex attacker also pulled her by the hair and tried to drag her to the ground.

Baden followed his victim before punching her and putting his hand up her skirt

He then grabbed the victim around the waist with one hand and put his other hand up her skirt before sexually assaulting her on her own driveway. At that point, having heard her shouts, her housemate opened the door and Baden ran away.

The friend dialled 999 and a police dog followed the snapper’s scent from the scene until losing it in a park near his home in Leamington Spa.

But a CCTV operator recognised Baden from his Facebook page and turned detective by searching the website of the Loose Box bar. He managed he find a photograph of the sex attacker, who was shown leaving at 1.46am on a CCTV camera.

Baden, a well-known bar and club photographer in Leam, suggested there was someone else in the area responsible for the despicable attack. He lied and said he had been walking home when he heard a man’s voice and a woman’s voice.

Incredibly, he also audaciously claimed he himself had been the subject of an assault as he made his own way home. Baden pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the student and went on trial at Warwick Crown Court in July this year.

But a jury took just one hour to find the snapper guilty by a unanimous verdict. And last Friday, Baden was jailed for three years and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Baden’s photo was spotted on the Loose Box website

Caging him, Judge Richard Griffith-Jones said: “You have committed a very grave crime. It is grave because it strikes at the root of the self-confidence that women are entitled to feel as they socialise and move about between where they are socialising and their homes.

“This attack on an intelligent young woman has all the hallmarks of the sort of nightmare which so worries young women when they are out. This will have a lasting effect on the way she lives her life in the future.”

The court heard Baden was popular around bars and clubs in Leamington, acting as a photographer for a website called Residentclubber. He claimed he was on medication which had affected his sexuality and said that he considered himself to be sexless.

Prosecutor Anthony Potter said: “The young victim ignored him and continued on her way but Baden began to follow her, making further vile comments.

“When Baden continue to follow her onto the drive of her home, she told him: ‘You don’t live here. I think you should leave’.”

Defending, Nick Devine said Baden had been of previous good character and had worked in a profession which required regular CRB checks because of regular contact with young people. He also carried out community work, particularly through a Sikh temple, and was the primary carer for his elderly mother.

Mr Devine added: “It seems to be an utter break from his normal behaviour, and it came completely out of the blue.”