Locations
Harrow Street, Halifax, West Yorkshire, HX1
Description
A man who raped and sexually abused a young girl from the age of five has been jailed.
Parvaiz Akhtar, aged 61, appeared at Bradford Crown Court yesterday, (15 April), where he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The abuse started when the survivor was a child - her earliest account was aged five and lasted until she was around 15 years old.
Thirty years later, in May 2023, she bravely came forward to report the abuse she suffered as a child to a third party.
Officers from the Calderdale District Safeguarding Team launched an investigation following the report and enquiries to find Akhtar suggested he was out of the country.
Upon returning to the UK, he was arrested in April 2024 and subsequently charged with 12 offences including three counts of rape and nine counts of sexual assault on a child.
Akhtar denied 10 of the 12 charges. He gave a guilty plea to one count of sexual assault and one count of rape.
A five-day trial took place at Bradford Crown Court in February this year for the remaining 10 charges where the jury returned an unanimous guilty verdict on all charges.
In addition to the 14-year custodial sentence, he will also be required to sign the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.