UK- SHE was good at her job as a lapdancer in one of Edinburgh’s many clubs. The dancing and the routines kept her fit – and she was also a good looker. All essential to keep the mainly male customers happy.

She was so good that every night, she left with a bundle of banknotes as tips. Very handy to help support her in her hobby of having a good time.

Why shouldn’t she? She was young – only 23 – beautiful and free.

In May 2005, she finished her work as usual and went to another club with friends. Socialising with punters at your own club wasn’t allowed. At the new club, she and her pals ate pizza and drank wine – lots of wine.

Nearby, a handsome, swarthy man was standing with a pal and they got chatting. His name was Elumaz Abdelgadir.

He was generous in buying drinks and very talkative. He was from the Middle East and she was curious as to why he was in Edinburgh.

“My father is a sheik in Dubai,” was all he offered in explanation and that seemed enough. There were plenty of people on the Edinburgh scene who were out for a good time, that’s all. She was one. Why shouldn’t a member of the Dubai dynasty do the same? At least they could afford the pleasure.

Afterwards, Abdelgadir invited her and her friends back to his flat for a few drinks. At the last minute, her friends changed their minds. She still agreed to go but said she couldn’t stay long. Maybe she had in mind seeing him again? Maybe she was curious to see where a sheik’s son lived? Maybe she had too many drinks to be sensible and head for home?

The flat was in nearby Dalry. An OK flat but not as grand or luxurious as you’d expect of a sheik’s son. Someone opened a bottle of champagne and the three sipped from their glasses. Suddenly she felt tired, awfully tired, and said she needed to go home.

No problem, said Abdelgadir and his friend. They’d call her a taxi. At that time of night, the cab might take a while to arrive. She could lie down on a bed and have a wee doze until then.

There had been nothing to worry the young woman all night. Besides, she was so tired she was almost asleep on her feet. She went through to the bedroom and lay down.

A minute later, Abdelgadir was lying beside her, rubbing her tummy and kissing her cheek.

“I don’t want anything like that,” she told him. He stopped what he was doing immediately.

She was just so tired. More tired than she could ever remember.

The next thing she knew, she woke up under the covers with Abdelgadir lying next to her. Coming to her senses, she realised something – she had no pants on.

From sleep to panic in a stroke. She jumped from bed, gathered her clothes and fled.

Outside, she phoned a pal who arrived in a taxi to collect her.

As she related the night’s happenings to her friend, a slow realisation came over her. Had she been drugged and raped?

The Edinburgh cops believed so. They went to Abdelgadir’s flat, followed by a forensic team. The place was still showing the activities of the night before, including that bottle of champagne they had been drinking from.

THE champagne bottle had traces of Trazodone, a prescription drug used in the treatment of depression and insomnia. It is a sedative.

At Abdelgadir’s rape trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in May 2006, he pleaded not guilty.

A defence expert said the levels of Trazodone in the champagne would be “without clinical effect”. In other words, it was so weak a dose it would make no one uncontrollably sleepy.

For some reason, the prosecution didn’t call their own expert witnesses.

So why did the young woman feel so tired? Maybe because her blood was found to contain three times the legal alcohol level for driving? Or were there other expert views on Trazodone that were never heard?

Part of Abdelgadir’s not guilty plea was to blame another named man for the offence. But it was Abdelgadir’s flat. It was he who poured the drinks. He who went to bed with her, only to be rebuffed. It was Abdelgadir she woke up with – her underwear missing.

The case seemed to be coming down to who the jury believed. Then there was the small matter of the “son of a sheik”.

Abdelgadir was indeed from the Middle East – but war-torn Sudan, not wealthy Dubai, and his father certainly wasn’t a sheik.

The young man had plenty of free time, though, since he was an unemployed car mechanic. Maybe that explained why the Dalry flat wasn’t as grand as might have been expected of a sheik’s son.

Even the “champagne” they were drinking was not the real thing. Nothing was that night.

Abdelgadir had conned her from the moment they had met.

The young woman admitted having no memory of having sex with Abdelgadir. In fact, she had no memory even of her clothes being removed.

Abdelgadir in turn said he had been lying in bed with the woman when another, named man came into the room and started having sex with her. This aroused Abdelgadir so much, he said, that it explained why his DNA was found on the woman.

It was an ingenious argument but who would the jury believe? The young lapdancer or the fake sheik?

They believed the young lapdancer.

Summing up before sentencing him, judge Lord Wheatley said: “This is a most unusual case.”

He went on: “For the avoidance of doubt, there is no evidence you administered any drug to the victim in this case.”

Abdelgadir’s lawyer, Jock Thomson QC asked for leniency since the woman had not been left traumatised by the incident. But then there were the lies from the start, with Abdelgadir conning his victim into thinking he was the son of a sheik.

The fake sheik was jailed for three years.

He was generous in buying drinks and talkative

They’re the men and women who carried out some of the most notorious crimes. But jail was waiting just around the corner. In this three-day series, Scotland’s No1 crime writer Reg McKay lifts the lid on some of the cases that shocked the nation. The seducers. The conmen and women. The bitches and the beasts. They had one thing in common – they used sex to get their evil ways