Valentin Lazar receives additional prison sentence for admitting to raping victim before murder

Valentin Lazar, a convicted murderer, was sentenced to an additional five years in prison after admitting to raping his vulnerable victim, 45-year-old Maria Rawlings. In May 2021, Lazar battered and strangled Rawlings before leaving her naked in undergrowth in Romford, east London. He admitted to the murder and was initially jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years and six months in February 2022. The following month, Lazar confessed to raping Rawlings to an officer at Belmarsh prison. Judge Mark Lucraft handed Lazar a further five years’ imprisonment to run consecutively to his life sentence, stating that Lazar removed Rawlings’ clothing and raped her after killing her.

At the time of Lazar’s initial sentencing for murder, there was not enough evidence to establish a sexual motive, which would have increased the starting point for his sentence. In mitigation, Lazar’s attorney Christopher Whitehouse stated that Lazar wanted to “unburden himself” by confessing to the rape and hoped that his guilty plea would bring a sense of closure for Rawlings’ family. Rawlings’ father expressed that 15 minutes of anger towards the defenseless grandmother had caused a lifetime of pain for him and his family.

During the sentencing in 2022, the court heard that Rawlings had visited a hospital for a headache after sustaining a head injury on the evening of her murder. She later boarded a bus where she encountered Lazar. CCTV footage showed the pair having a brief conversation before Lazar led Rawlings into some shrubbery where they disappeared from view. After 31 minutes, Lazar emerged alone with Rawlings’ handbag slung over his shoulder. He rifled through the bag before discarding it on the pavement. Following the attack, Lazar boarded another bus and arrived home after 1 am. A post-mortem examination revealed that Rawlings died from neck compression and blunt force head injury, with over 100 sites of blunt force trauma and other injuries.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC suggested a possible sexual motive to the murder due to bruises on Rawlings’ inner thighs and the fact that she was found naked. The court heard that Lazar had purposely removed Rawlings’ clothing and raped her after killing her. Judge Mark Lucraft’s additional five-year prison sentence effectively delays the possibility of Lazar being considered for release. Lazar’s actions towards Rawlings were described as brutal and callous, causing significant anguish for her family. The court recognized the severity of the crime and imposed a punishment that reflects the seriousness of the offenses committed by Lazar against Rawlings.