In 2026, a 34-year-old married man was sentenced to an extended term of 14 years at Leicester Crown Court after grooming a vulnerable 14-year-old schoolgirl online, arranging cross-county train travel, and sexually abusing her in vehicles and hotels.
Shoaib Mohammed, residing in Sheffield, appeared before the court for sentencing on Thursday following his eventual guilty pleas entered on the day his trial was listed to begin, after the proceedings had been repeatedly listed and relisted.
The prosecution outlined that Mohammed initiated contact with the young victim via the social media application Snapchat in 2021. Despite being significantly older and fully aware that the girl was only 14 years of age, Mohammed engaged in sustained manipulation over several months. The court heard the victim was struggling emotionally with impending GCSE mock examinations, a vulnerability Mohammed deliberately identified and exploited. Posing as a confidant and mentor, Mohammed convinced the teenager that they were in a legitimate boyfriend-girlfriend relationship while actively alienating her from her peer support network and friends.
After coercing the child into transmitting sexualised photographs, Mohammed coordinated a plan for the victim to leave her family home in Leicester and travel alone by train to meet him in Sheffield. Upon her arrival, Mohammed drove the child to a secluded street in the Greater Manchester area, where he engaged in sexual activity with her inside the vehicle.
Over the course of the following days, Mohammed booked the teenager into a series of hotels across Sheffield. The court heard he repeatedly abandoned the child locked inside hotel bedrooms for hours at a time while he returned home to carry on with his everyday domestic and married life. During one attempted booking, an observant hotel receptionist intervened and challenged Mohammed, an action the court formally commended for demonstrating exemplary professionalism.
The girl’s family alerted police and reported her missing. Upon discovering that law enforcement had launched an urgent missing persons investigation, Mohammed panicked, drove the victim back to Sheffield railway station, and put her on a train back to Leicester, where she was reunited with her family. Officers from Leicestershire Police arrested Mohammed shortly thereafter.
Mohammed entered formal guilty pleas to:
Five counts of sexual activity with a child
One count of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity
Three counts of possessing indecent images of a child
Passing sentence, Judge Keith Raynor condemned Mohammed’s calculated exploitation:
“The contact was to such a degree that the victim thought that [the defendant] and her were boyfriend and girlfriend. You acted as her mentor and confidant, but you also wanted to drive a wedge between her and her friends. At this stage you had one thing on your mind, and it was to abuse her sexually.”
Praising the young survivor’s bravery, Judge Raynor described her victim personal statement as “one of the most impactful statements that I have ever heard in my judicial career,” commending her for describing with eloquence the profound fear and distress she endured.
The judge handed Mohammed an extended sentence comprising an immediate custodial term of 11 years—of which he must serve a minimum of two-thirds before parole consideration—followed by an extended licence period of three years. In addition, the court made Mohammed subject to a 15-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order alongside statutory lifetime notification on the Sex Offenders Register.
Image – Anonymous Artist Impression
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