Abdul Khan, an asylum seeker who posed as a teenager on social media to groom and rape a 13-year-old girl, has been sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. The court heard he entered the UK hidden in a lorry in 2015 and will be automatically deported to Afghanistan after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
Crime details
Nottingham Crown Court was told that Khan, believed to be 28, contacted his victim via Snapchat, pretending to be a 14-year-old boy. He arranged to meet her at a nature reserve in Clifton, Nottingham, where he raped her twice in May. The jury found him guilty of two rape charges, sexual activity with a child, sexual communication with a child, meeting a child following grooming, and perverting the course of justice.
Khan, currently at HMP Nottingham, was already serving 23 months for sexual communication with another child in Derbyshire.
Victim impact
The victim attended court as prosecutor Dawn Pritchard presented her personal statement to Judge Mark Watson. The statement revealed she "feels numb when she thinks back to how she felt at the time" and "felt scared of the world after it happened and felt overwhelmed." She added that when she has flashbacks, she sees his face and what happened, and she feels like she can't trust anyone.
Sentencing remarks
Judge Watson told Khan: "You deliberately concealed your true identity. She thought she was communicating with a child of her own age. It was a lie you have persisted with throughout these proceedings." The judge described Khan's assertions about his age and identity as "nonsensical" and noted that the victim realized he was older than 14 when they met face-to-face, with Khan claiming to be 16.
Khan, who covered his face as he left the dock, was also placed on the sex offenders register for life. 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. 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."
