Talha Ahmed 25

Description

A man from Manchester has been jailed following an investigation carried out by the Constabulary’s Online Child Abuse Investigation Team.

Talha Ahmed was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment at Chester Crown Court on Friday 1 May. He was also made subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for life.

Ahmed, of Cranford Avenue, Burnage, Manchester, had previously pleaded guilty to five counts of attempting to cause a child aged 13 to 15 to look at images of sexual activity, three counts of making indecent photographs or pseudophotographs of a child and one count of attempting to incite a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity.

He also pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a prohibited image of a child and one count of possession of indecent images or pseudophotographs of a child.

The case against the 25yearold began on 17 September 2024 when officers from the Constabulary’s Online Child Abuse Investigation Team (OCAIT) executed a Section 8 warrant at Ahmed’s home address. This was in connection to offences relating to the possession, creation and sharing of indecent images of children.

Upon arrest, Ahmed told officers that illicit images had been sent to him by another person but claimed that he had since deleted them. During a subsequent search of the property, officers seized two mobile phones belonging to him.

While interviewed in custody, Ahmed was questioned about the possession and distribution of indecent images. He answered “no comment” to all questions and was later released on conditional bail while his devices were examined by digital media investigators.

Examination of the devices revealed the presence of Category A, B and C indecent images of children.

Further evidence showed that Ahmed had also committed additional offences by engaging in sexual communications with a child, requesting intimate images from her and sending sexual images of himself.

Ahmed was arrested and interviewed for a second time in February 2025, during which he was questioned about the sexual communications with the teenager and the exchange of images. He again chose to answer no comment to all questions put to him.

Digital forensic enquiries revealed that Ahmed had been communicating with the child across multiple social media and messaging platforms over a period of three years, from June 2021 to the point of his arrest in September 2024.

Ahmed was 20 years old when the offending began, and the victim was 14.

Detective Constable Faye Taylor, of the Online Child Abuse Investigation Team, said:

“Engaging in communication with young people solely for the purpose of sexual gratification is truly abhorrent, and I welcome the sentence handed down to Talha Ahmed today.

“Ahmed was fully aware that the person he was communicating with was an underaged child, six years his junior. Despite this, he chose to engage in sustained contact with her over a period of more than three years in pursuit of his own warped fantasies.

“Ahmed believed that hiding behind a screen would allow him to avoid detection. He was wrong.

“Officers from within the Online Child Abuse Investigation Team deal with some of the most harrowing investigations due to the serious nature of child sexual abuse offences and the content that is often involved in such cases.

“Despite this, OCAIT officers work tirelessly, 365 days a year, to secure convictions and preventative orders against dangerous offenders, helping to protect some of the most vulnerable members of our society, children, from harm and exploitation.”