Description
A VILE and dangerous sex predator has been locked up after grooming a child on Snapchat and then raping her.
Earlier this year, Shah Sikander began communicating with the 14-year-old victim on the social media platform.
The 36-year-old deliberately tricked her into thinking he was a 22-year-old man called Sanchez, and he even sent her a photograph of a younger man, falsely claiming that to be him.
The victim had been clear she was under the age of 16 throughout her online communication with Sikander.
Before meeting his victim, Sikander offered to shower her with gifts, talked about meeting up for sex and successfully convinced her to send sexualised images of herself to him.
Having set up the meeting, Sikander travelled from his Warrington home to meet the victim in Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire on July 15.
He drove her to a remote location in Preston and raped her, before dropping her off in Blackpool town centre.
The victim told her family what had happened later the same evening.
Lancashire Police launched an investigation and Sikander was identified via CCTV footage of him dropping the victim off. He was arrested on the M6 the following day.
Presented with overwhelming evidence, Sikander, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to rape, child abduction and sexual communication with a child at Preston Crown Court
Judge Guy Mathieson described the defendant as a dangerous sexual predator and jailed him for 12 years.
Sikander was also ordered to sign the sex offender register for life and was made the subject of an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.