Mohammed Ibrar Aslam,47, of Hartopp Road, Birmingham, who attacked a woman in a Bradford finally arrested almost after 20 years on a plane at Birmingham International Airport just moments before it took off for Pakistan.

In March 2001 the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had been drinking in Halifax with friends before she left a nightclub on her own in the early hours of the morning.

Woman was very intoxicated when a car stopped and someone asked if she was alright. The next thing she remembeed is she was lying face down on a double bed and was being abused by a man along with another man in the house.

She was offered a cup of tea and allowed to put her clothes back on before they gave her lift in a car from Bradford back to the Halifax area.

The woman, who got back to her family home at about 5.30am, gave a statement about the abuse to police, but despite extensive inquiries at the time the crime remained undetected for nearly two decades.

Aslam, who was 29 at the time, was involved in abducting the woman off the streets and taking her to the stranger’s house.

Aslam was identified as a potential suspect for a DNA test after a new inquiry started in last year following advances in forensics science.

His information had been circulated via police and E-Border systems and on January and police officers from the West Midlands found him on board an Emirates flight waiting to take off for Pakistan via Dubai.

Aslam was transferred to Wakefield for questioning and initially denied being responsible for the offence or knowing the woman.

But in February he pleaded to the abuse charge after his DNA matched samples taken from the victim 18 years and today Judge Simon Phillips QC sentenced him to 11 years and three months in jail.