Description
A man has been jailed after grooming and raping a 13-year-old girl in Nottinghamshire.
Abdul Khan, aged 28, arranged to meet the girl about a week after adding her on the social media messaging app Snapchat.
Khan, who posed online as a 14-year-old boy, met the girl for the first time on the evening of 14 May last year, when she was taken into woodland near Clifton and raped.
Khan had believed his victim to be only 14 years old at the time of the offence.
By chance he was arrested the same day by officers from Derbyshire Constabulary investigating other sexual offences for which he was later jailed.
Nottinghamshire officers linked him to the rape by a mobile phone seized during his arrest and interviewed him at HMP Nottingham whilst he was on remand.
During his police interview on 10 July last year, Khan claimed to be a 15-year-old boy with a different name.
Even when confronted by damning DNA evidence linking him to the offence, he claimed not to have met the victim or to have visited the offence location.
He also said he'd never used Snapchat before and also suggested that his mobile phone could belong to somebody else – despite it having multiple images of him saved on it.
During a second interview on 18 February this year, Khan claimed to be another person entirely, and again denied any link to the victim or any of the multiple witnesses who picked him out during an ID procedure.
Detectives were eventually able to prove his identity after finding an image of an Afghan national ID card on his phone.
After a three-day trial at Nottingham Crown Court this week, Khan, of no fixed address, was found guilty of the following offences:
- Two counts of rape
- One count of engaging in sexual activity with a child
- Engaging in sexual communication with a child
- Meeting a girl under 16 following grooming
- Perverting the course of justice.
He was sentenced today (Monday 10 August) and was jailed for nine-and-a-half years. He also faces automatic deportation on completion of his sentence.
Detective Constable Madeleine Johnson, of Nottinghamshire Police, said:
"Khan is an opportunistic and predatory offender who poses a clear risk to teenage girls and other young women.
"As his previous grooming conviction demonstrates, he was absolutely determined in his ambition to strike up sexual relationships with young girls.
"The victim in this case was particularly vulnerable at the time of this offence and has unsurprisingly suffered a great deal as a result of what Khan did to her.
"It is thanks to her bravery and the compelling evidence she was able to give that this man is now off our streets for good."