A Sudanese asylum seeker convicted of attempting to meet up with a pedophile hunter posing as a 14-year-old girl on the internet has been spared prison time in the U.K. and sentenced to 30 hours of community service.
Mofasim Abdulkarim, 23, pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child and asking a child to take indecent pictures; he appeared before Leicester Crown Court on Aug. 30.
The court heard how Abdulkarim, who had been living in taxpayer-funded hotel accommodation in Leicester since arriving in the U.K., befriended a fake profile on Facebook portraying a 14-year-old schoolgirl called Milly.
The profile was actually run by an adult member of the Protecting the Innocent vigilante group, which tracks down pedophiles and reports them to the authorities, as reported by Leicestershire Live.
Abdulkarim initiated conversations with the fake account during which he requested naked photos of the minor and asked her to meet up for sex.
“Would you like to have sex? I want to see under your bra,” read one message from the Sudanese national, which was read out loud in court.
“He said he wanted to be the first one to touch her and the first one to have sex with her,” recounted Stefan Fox, prosecuting.
After revealing his address, Abdulkarim was confronted by pedophile hunters on Jan. 23 last year at the Adagio Hotel in Leicester where he was residing. He was detained by the group who called the authorities, and the migrant was subsequently arrested, taken into custody, and charged. He later pleaded guilty to child sex offenses.
At his sentencing hearing last week, Abdulkarim’s defense counsel in mitigation alluded to the cultural differences between Sudan and Britain, adding that “of course, that’s no excuse and he knows he’s broken the law.”
He added that the conviction would harm his client’s efforts to claim asylum in the country, insisted his client was remorseful for his actions, and hoped to avoid prison so he could better integrate into U.K. society.
Instead of jail time, Abdulkarim was handed a 20-month custodial sentence suspended for two years. In addition, he was ordered to undertake 30 hours of unpaid work and be subject to a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) for the next 10 years.
While the conditions of this order are unknown, common restrictions as per the order include bans on entering playgrounds or schools and tracked internet activity. The order also often gives the police the power to visit a convict’s home without notice to ensure the conditions are being complied with.
It is understood that Abdulkarim has since been transferred away from the migrant hotel in Leicester to an accommodation in the West Midlands.