The face of the man who is the reason nan sleeps with scissors under her pillow

A nan now goes to bed every night with a pair of scissors under her pillow after she was raped at knifepoint by a man she met at a bus stop.

Alex Belay appeared to be a "nice lad", and the nan agreed to go back to his flat in the belief that she had missed the last bus home. But he instead snatched her phone from her as she spoke to her son, held a knife to her stomach and throat and subjected her to a horrific sexual assault.

She was left "genuinely believing" she was going to die during the attack. A remorseless Belay then "smirked" after finally bringing the ordeal to an end.

Liverpool Crown Court heard this week the victim had been visiting a friend before leaving to get the bus home at around midnight. She encountered the defendant at the bus stop but, believing they had missed the last service of the evening, they then began walking away together while chatting, the Liverpool Echo reports.

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Olivia Beesley, prosecuting, described how Belay then invited the woman into his flat on Sefton Moss Villas in Litherland. She agreed as she "thought she would be safe and wasn't in danger because he was much younger than her".

But, having returned from the toilet, she "felt that something was wrong" and told him that she was going to leave. Belay, an asylum seeker who was born in Eritrea and came to the UK in 2020 after fleeing civil war in Sudan, responded by turning the lights out and pushing her.

When she answered an incoming call from her son, the 26-year-old took her phone from her and locked the front door. He then grabbed a knife and held it to her stomach and pointed it at her throat "every time she began to speak".

Ms Beesley said: