Afghan asylum seeker is found guilty of abducting, raping and taking indecent video of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton

An Afghan asylum seeker who raped a 12-year-old girl in a case that sparked protests and allegations of a police cover-up was today found guilty of multiple sexual offenses against the ‘very vulnerable’ victim.

Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, who was said to have laughed as his victim attacked him in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, last summer, was found guilty of rape and two counts of sexual assault after pleading guilty to a further rape charge before his trial.

Jurors at Warwick Crown Court also found him guilty of child abduction and making an indecent video of the girl during her ordeal near a cul-de-sac.

Co-defendant Mohammed Kabir, also a refugee from Afghanistan, was acquitted of charges of intentional strangulation, attempted child abduction and committing a crime with intent to commit a sexual offence.
The court heard Mulakhil, who arrived in the UK four months before the attack, saw the girl playing on the swings in the park and later recorded her on a doorbell camera telling her ‘you’re too young’ and asking for her phone number.

Following the conclusion of the hearing, the Daily Mail revealed that the rapist was tracked through a Home Office payment card issued in his name.

After being sentenced, Mulakhil sat with his head bowed. He was remanded in custody until sentencing at a later date.

Judge Kristina Montgomery KC warned that ‘he would clearly face a significant prison sentence, which would make him automatically liable for deportation at the end of the sentence’.

Details of the 23-year-old’s immigration status were revealed by the Mail on Sunday, a month after the July attack, which sparked an anti-immigration protest in the city centre. But during the ten-day trial, jurors were not told that Mulakhil, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was an asylum seeker.

Mulakhil was arrested in his bed after the police entered the house where many people lived where he was ‘placed’

Police identified Mulakhil after security cameras recorded him taking his victim to a convenience store to buy Red Bull after the sexual assault and using a Ministry of Internal Affairs card issued in his name to pay for the drinks.

The cards are issued to asylum seekers awaiting a decision on whether they will be allowed to buy essential goods, and are loaded with up to £49 each week.

Mulakhil pleaded guilty to one count of oral rape before the trial after police officers found an image of the incident on his phone.

He denied kidnapping the girl and claimed that the sexual activity that took place was consensual and that the girl “initiated” it.

He also denied two charges of rape, kidnapping a child, two counts of sexual assault and taking indecent photographs of a child. He was acquitted of one of these two rape charges but was convicted of all the other crimes.

Details of the 23-year-old’s immigration status were revealed by the Mail on Sunday, a month after the attack in Nuneaton in July, which sparked an anti-immigration protest in the city centre.

Following today’s jury verdict, Warwickshire Police released body images showing the moment Mulakhil was arrested in his sparsely furnished bedroom at a multi-occupancy house (HMO) in Nuneaton.

Police believe the man targeted the girl after seeing her in the park.

The girl told police that she later came across Mulakhil in a nearby street. He took her to a grassy area next to the garages at the end of the cul-de-sac, threatened to kill her family and raped her repeatedly, jurors said.

‘He was saying he liked me,’ the girl said. ‘I don’t like you,’ I said. I am young. ‘I am a child’.

The court was told Mulakhil took indecent photographs of the teenager during the attack.

Shortly after Mulakhil was seen with a girl buying Red Bull from a convenience store, the girl took an opportunity to escape from him and ran away.

Protesters took to the streets in Nuneaton following the attack in August last year

He was later found ‘distressed’ and alone in another nearby park by an adult he knew and called the police.

The court heard Mulakhil’s DNA was found on the girl’s neck and inside her shorts.

CCTV evidence showed that Mulakhil spent approximately 80 minutes with the girl in the cul-de-sac.

Mulakhil, assisted in court by a Persian translator, admitted to police that he had encountered the girl twice that day and claimed he believed she appeared to be in her twenties; He then told jurors that he believed the woman when doorbell video recorded her talking to him on the street before the rape and when he told her she was 19.

But prosecutor Daniel Oscroft told the court during his opening: ‘The prosecution says it will be obvious to everyone that he is a very young and defenseless child.’

Mulakhil told jurors that her ‘immigration application’ was still in process when the rape occurred.

Mulakhil said he arrived in the UK four months before the attack and was ‘settled’ in Nuneaton six weeks before he attacked the girl. He was arrested four days after the incident and charged the next day.

He had no previous convictions.

Mulakhil and Kabir were living in taxpayer-funded rented houses on adjacent streets in Nuneaton.

Neighbors said both properties were managed by Serco, which housed about five asylum seekers in each house but are now empty.

Last August, George Finch, leader of the Reform UK-led Warwickshire County Council, accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of concealing Mulakhil and Kabir’s immigration status.

It has been revealed that Warwickshire Police advised councilors and officials not to reveal suspects’ backgrounds for fear of ‘exacerbating community tensions’ amid fears of unrest similar to that seen in Epping, Essex, after asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu was accused and later convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

Mr Fich, the country’s youngest county leader at 19, said at the time that he was ‘begging’ for information about the pair following the accusations.

This anger has led to new instructions for police forces to disclose the ethnicity and nationality of suspects in high-profile cases.

Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Colette O’Keefe, of Warwickshire Police, said the case ‘shows that nationality and ethnicity do not matter’, adding: ‘We deal with people robustly and get results very quickly.’

‘I think what’s lost in most of these cases is that the person at the center of this investigation was a 12-year-old victim.’ “Regardless of the ethnicity or nationality” of the accused, he said, “we really must not forget that the victim was raped.”

DCI O’Keefe added: ‘He was outside, playing in the park, which is what children should be able to do… I think (he) saw an opportunity… he made the decision to target that person.’

Asked to respond to allegations that police tried to cover up suspects’ pasts following last summer’s rape, Warwickshire Police’s chief communities and response officer, Steve Flavell, said: ‘We did everything in accordance with the guidance that was available at the time.

‘When we published our communications there was no guidance on whether we should disclose specific details about offenders.

‘Today we still do not disclose a criminal’s immigration status because that information belongs to the Home Office.

‘But we are aware that there is now new national guidance that allows us to disclose certain information to the media.’

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We will not allow foreign criminals and illegal immigrants to abuse our laws.

‘We are reforming human rights laws and changing the broken appeals system to increase deportations.

‘The Home Secretary recently announced sweeping reforms to combat illegal immigration. ‘It will make Britain a less attractive destination for illegal immigrants and make it easier for them to be deported and deported.’

The Ministry of Internal Affairs launched an investigation last July into allegations that some asylum seekers may be using payment cards for gambling purposes.

Freedom of Information request made by PoliticsHome Page It was revealed that more than 6,500 gambling-related payment attempts were made by asylum seekers last year.

When asylum seekers first arrive, they are often first put up in fully catered hotels and receive £9.95 a week with Aspen cards; When they move to self-catering accommodation, this figure rises to £49.18 a week.