Man found guilty after five-year-old rescued from bedsit; sentencing adjourned

A Birmingham jury has found Mohammed Abdulraziq guilty of false imprisonment with intent to commit a sexual assault, sexual assault and assault after a five-year-old girl was discovered in his ground-floor bedsit with her clothing partially removed, the court heard.

Jurors at Birmingham Crown Court returned majority verdicts of 11-1 on the false imprisonment and sexual assault charges and a unanimous verdict on the assault charge. Judge Kerry Maylin ordered a probation assessment to determine whether Abdulraziq should be designated "dangerous," a finding that could lead to an extended or life sentence. Sentencing was adjourned until Dec. 9, and the judge remanded him into custody.

Prosecutors said the incident began about 2 p.m. on March 30 when the defendant, who had been living in the house of multiple occupation for less than two months, grabbed the child while her mother was speaking to a friend. The mother and her friend searched a nearby park and corner shop before returning to find the girl missing and then heard her crying inside the property, the court was told.

The mother identified the address and began banging on the locked front door and windows. The friend partially climbed through a window and drew back a curtain to see Abdulraziq next to a bed and the child opposite him. The friend told jurors she saw the girl's cycling shorts at ankle level and the defendant's shorts also lowered; the defendant was wearing a T-shirt above the waist.

According to prosecution accounts, Abdulraziq struck out at the woman and shut the window, causing her to fall back into the street. Two men were then alerted by the commotion, forced the front door open and restrained Abdulraziq until police arrived "very quickly," the jury heard. After the child was freed, she told her mother, "The stranger hurt me, mummy," the court heard.

Abdulraziq gave no comment to police after his arrest, the jury was told, saying at trial that he had followed his solicitor's advice. Through an interpreter, he told the court the child had walked into his room to use the toilet and asked him to help pull up her shorts. He said he had lived at the address for one to two months and that other men occupied rooms upstairs.

Answering questions via an interpreter, Abdulraziq said he had been in the country for about ten years and was from Sudan. He told the court he had consumed three cans of beer and two cigarettes of "Mamba," a synthetic drug designed to mimic cannabis whose effects are regarded as more harmful and unpredictable than natural cannabis.

The court heard that the defendant is Arabic-speaking and sat in the dock with an interpreter at trial. Jurors comprised six men and six women.

Prosecutor Tariq Shakoor told the jury that Abdulraziq had "sexually assaulted" the child and that he had intended to carry out further sexual acts had the mother and neighbours not intervened.

The trial also touched on the defendant's criminal history. In September 2023, Abdulraziq was sentenced to 21 months for threatening a general practitioner with a knife during an incident the previous November. The court was told he is also awaiting sentence for separate offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, attempted assault occasioning actual bodily harm and damaging property, offences said to have occurred five days before the incident involving the child.

A Home Office spokesman said the department seeks to deport foreign nationals who commit crimes, noting the government has removed thousands of foreign national offenders in recent years. It is understood the Home Office is now seeking to revoke Abdulraziq's permission to remain in the U.K.

The case prompted mention of the synthetic drug Mamba during testimony. Synthetic cannabinoids such as Mamba have been linked to more unpredictable and sometimes severe effects than natural cannabis, and they are often cited in court and health reports as presenting additional risks to users and others.

Judge Maylin warned the defendant that a long custodial sentence was inevitable and reiterated the need for the probation service's dangerousness assessment before final sentence was imposed. The case will return to Birmingham Crown Court on Dec. 9 for sentencing.