R v Mohammed Al-Hassan & Anor

This is a case to which the anonymity provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply. No matter relating to the complainant shall during her lifetime be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify her as the victim of the offences. This prohibition applies unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act.

Mohammed Al-Hassan (now aged 24) and Mohammed Abdullah (now aged 30) appeal by leave of the single judge against their sentences for an offence of sexual assault, contrary to section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, committed jointly on a particularly vulnerable 15-year-old girl in central London in July 2024.

On 28 January 2025 in the Crown Court at Southwark, they were both convicted by the jury of that offence of sexual assault (Count 1). Mohammed Al-Hassan was also convicted by the jury of being in breach of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, contrary to section 354(1) of the Sentencing Act 2020 (Count 2).

On 24 April 2025 the appellants were sentenced by the trial judge, His Honour Judge Hehir. Mohammed Al-Hassan was sentenced to an extended determinate sentence of 10 years' imprisonment, pursuant to section 279 of the Sentencing Act 2020, comprising a custodial term of 7 years and an extended licence period of 3 years. That was the sentence on Count 1. On Count 2 there was a concurrent determinate sentence of 3 years. On Count 1, Mohammed Abdullah was sentenced to a determinate sentence of 6 years' imprisonment. A Sexual Harm Prevention Order was imposed on each appellant until further order, as to which there is no appeal. As a consequence of their convictions as sex offenders, each appellant is subject indefinitely to the notification provisions of Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and the appellants will or may be included in the relevant list by the Disclosure and Barring Service.

The central issue in the appeal is whether the judge correctly categorised the offence of sexual assault in Count 1 and whether in consequence the sentence was manifestly excessive. There is no appeal by Mohammed Al-Hassan against the imposition of an extended sentence or against the sentence on Count 2.

We are grateful to Mr Thomas Cleeve and Ms Chloe Birch for their written and oral submissions on behalf of the appellants, and to Mr William Boyce KC for his oral submissions on behalf of the Crown.

The victim of the offences was a 15-year-old girl whom we shall refer to simply as G. She was and is a troubled and highly vulnerable girl. We take the following summary of the facts largely from the judge's sentencing remarks.

The appellants came across G in Leicester Square in central London in the early hours of Friday 12 July 2024. She had run away from home the previous evening and had already been reported missing to the police. It was the third time she had run away from home in the space of a fortnight. She had previously been diagnosed with ADHD and autism, and in 2023 she had spent several months as an in-patient at a psychiatric hospital. She was taking a lot of medication for her condition. One manifestation of her illness was self-harm and suicide attempts. She had taken one or more overdoses of paracetamol in the hours between leaving home and encountering the appellants. It would have been obvious to the appellants that she was very vulnerable. She told them her age and the circumstances in which she came to be there, namely, that she had run away from her parents.

It was probably about 3.30 am when she encountered the appellants. She had left home without a coat. She was cold and she was shivering. Mr Abdullah lent her his coat, but it was only a pretext for touching her sexually. Mr Al-Hassan joined in. They touched various parts of her body, including her breasts, over her clothing. The appellants then made her walk with them, and the three of them wandered around the Leicester Square area for some time, probably about half an hour, generally with one appellant on either side of her keeping her close to them. CCTV footage captured them walking in the streets close to Leicester Square. The appellants were drunk. They tried to make G drink alcohol and smoke. They forced a pill into her mouth in an attempt to drug her, although she thinks she spat it out. At one stage during these wanderings, they took her to Piccadilly Circus, where a group of their friends were congregating around the statue of Eros. She had already told the appellants that she was only 15 years old and that she had had an argument with her parents. The judge's finding was that the appellants took her to Piccadilly Circus to parade her to their friends as a trophy.

During the time they were walking around with G, including the time at Piccadilly Circus, the appellants were repeatedly touching G's hair, face, neck, shoulders and arms. More seriously, she was touched on her buttocks or "glutes", as she described them in evidence. The judge found that what they had in mind went far beyond simply touching her. G became increasingly alarmed by things the appellants were saying to her. They spoke of taking her to an address in another part of London, where she would spend several nights. They spoke of putting her to bed and "having fun". Fortunately for G, the appellants were both so drunk that they had difficulty locating the bus stop for the place where they wanted to take her.

Because of her troubled state, G had not initially been as bothered by the appellants' behaviour as she might have been. G thought that they wanted to kill her, and that is what she herself had wanted to do because of her suicidal thoughts. But then she realised that they were intending something which, in her words, she regarded as "…worse than death. I don't want to get raped, that's not what I signed up for."

While the three of them were walking around the streets, G had made a number of unsuccessful attempts to alert members of the public to what was happening. Eventually she had the presence of mind to lead the appellants back to Leicester Square where she knew there would be police officers present. We have watched, as the jury did, the CCTV footage of this final part of the incident. As G and the appellants passed a group of uniformed police officers, G can be seen turning and looking at them over her shoulder on several occasions. In fact she was mouthing the words "Help me" to one of the female officers.

The police officers moved in and rescued her. Mr Abdullah was still with G. Mr Al-Hassan had walked away. G was able to tell the police what had been happening, and on the strength of that, both appellants were arrested. G informed the police that she had taken an overdose. She ran off towards oncoming traffic and had to be detained herself. She was later admitted compulsorily to hospital under the Mental Health Act, where she remained until the trial some three-and-a-half months later.

In a lengthy ABE video-recorded interview at the police station (which we understand lasted some four-and-a-half hours) she was able to give a detailed and comprehensive account of what had taken place, first giving a narrative account freely and then being taken through it by the interviewer in detail in the usual way.

At the time of this offending Mr Al-Hassan was the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order which prohibited him from approaching or remaining in the company of any lone female in a public place. That order had been made following his conviction and sentence in October 2021 for two sexual assaults on females committed in Brighton town centre in 2019.

Both appellants were on police bail, having been arrested ten days earlier for another alleged assault on a female — a matter which was not in the event pursued.

In his police interview Mr Al-Hassan denied ever being in the company of G and denied knowing Mr Abdullah. He said he had seen Mr Abdullah in Leicester Square and greeted him for a short time but he had then walked off. He had not approached or spoken to G. He maintained that false account at trial.

Mr Abdullah accepted in his police interview that he had been in company with Mr Al-Hassan in the vicinity of Leicester Square but he denied touching G sexually or at all; he had simply given her his coat, he said, to keep her warm. She was mistaken if she thought he had done anything else. He maintained that false account at trial but accepted that he had known Mr Al-Hassan for two years and that they were friends.

There was no victim personal statement from G herself, but the impact of the offences on G and her family was graphically described in a victim personal statement made by G's mother. That statement was made after the trial was over, in the usual way, so that the sentencing judge could have the best up-to-date information on the overall impact of the offending upon the victim.

In that statement her mother said that ever since the night of the incident the family had been in a constant state of worry and upset over G's well-being and what effect it could have on the rest of her life. G was due to be sitting her GCSEs in 2025 but following this incident and its aftermath she had been unable even to attend school. Having to give a video-recorded interview at the police station had preoccupied G's mind and left her unsettled for weeks before the interview took place. After giving evidence in court, the emotional impact really destabilised her. She again tried to abscond and had to be restrained and escorted back to her hospital ward in secure transport. She tried to self-harm and had to be put back on a 2:1 staff-to-patient care ratio with no privacy. The plan had been for some overnight home leave, but that had been set back. G tried again to abscond from the hospital and had to be restrained. Her mother said that the family's main concern was that it was impossible to tell whether there would be a longer-term impact on G's wellbeing once the immediate mental health issues subsided.

Both the appellants had previous convictions.

Mr Al-Hassan was fined in 2020 for offences of battery and threatening behaviour. In 2021 he was fined for criminal damage. For the sexual assaults in Brighton to which we have referred, having entered guilty pleas he was made the subject of a community order for 2 years with various requirements and the Sexual Harm Prevention Order was made for 5 years. He breached the community order on two occasions and was eventually sentenced instead to 15 months' imprisonment. In 2023 for an offence of battery, he was sentenced to 24 weeks' imprisonment.

Mr Abdullah was convicted in 2023 of assaulting an emergency worker, for which he received a sentence of 12 weeks' imprisonment suspended for 12 months. He had convictions in 2024 for being drunk and disorderly, for criminal damage, and for threatening behaviour, for which he was fined. In March 2024 he was sentenced to 20 weeks' imprisonment for theft.

There were pre-sentence reports. We need summarise them only very briefly. The appellants are both nationals of Sudan who came to the United Kingdom as asylum seekers.

Mr Al-Hassan came to the United Kingdom at the age of 16, unaccompanied, fleeing the civil war in Sudan. In 2018 he was placed in the care of Tower Hamlets children’s services. He continued to deny these offences when he was interviewed for the pre-sentence report. The view of the author of the report was that he was solely concerned with obtaining sexual gratification on this occasion and that his actions were predatory in that he persisted with his sexual advances. He was assessed in the report as posing a very high risk of further sexual offending.

Mr Abdullah, when interviewed for his pre-sentence report, also continued to maintain his innocence, asserting that his conduct towards G was not sexually motivated. On fleeing from Sudan, he had been granted refugee status in the United Kingdom. Probation records suggested that he had developed a pattern of excessive alcohol use with a chaotic lifestyle, experiencing periods of street homelessness. The assessment of the report was that he posed a high risk of reoffending generally.

In his sentencing remarks the judge described this as very serious offending indeed. He was satisfied that the offence of sexual assault was a Category 1A offence under the relevant Sentencing Council guideline. There was Category 1 harm for two reasons.

First, because the offence involved abduction: G was not free to leave at any point during the period the appellants took her around the streets, which is why she had to mouth "help" to the police officer. The judge was satisfied that the appellants had a more serious abduction in mind, although he stressed that he was not sentencing them for what might have happened had they succeeded in taking her away to another part of London.

Second, it was Category 1 harm, the judge said, because the appellants caused G severe psychological harm. That was clear from the victim personal statement provided by G's mother. The judge said:

The judge was satisfied that there was level A High Culpability. Two guideline factors were present. First, the appellants acted together to commit the offence. Second, they used alcohol and drugs to facilitate the offence.

As a Category 1A offence the starting point under the guideline was 4 years' custody, with a range of 3 to 7 years.

The judge identified aggravating factors for both appellants, cautioning himself against double-counting matters that had already been taken into account in placing the offence in the highest harm and culpability categories. First, the appellants were both under the influence of alcohol, and possibly cannabis, when they committed the offence. Second, they were both on police bail in relation to a separate allegation of sexual assault. Third, they targeted a particularly and obviously vulnerable victim.

Turning to mitigating factors, the judge bore in mind that both appellants were from Sudan and were asylum seekers, but that, he said, was not mitigation in itself. Having been granted asylum in this country, the judge said, they ought at the very least to have obeyed this country's laws rather than committing offences like this. Nor could any trauma suffered in their country of birth begin to excuse or explain the offence they had committed against G. Their lack of English was of some relevance in mitigation because the judge bore in mind that their experience in prison may be somewhat harder for them as a result.

Having imposed the indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order on both appellants for the reasons he explained, the judge turned to the custodial sentences. He said that although Mr Al-Hassan was only 22 years of age, that provided no real mitigation in view of his record and the seriousness of the offending. It was an aggravating factor in his case that approaching G and remaining in her company amounted in itself to the most flagrant breach of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order to which he was subject. There would be a concurrent sentence on count 2, however, because the totality of his offending on both counts would be reflected in the sentence in Count 1. Mr Al-Hassan's previous convictions for sexual assault in Brighton which led to the making of the order were also an aggravating feature in themselves, particularly because the female victims on that occasion were strangers whom he had approached on the street, although unlike G, they were adult women.

In relation to ‘dangerousness’, the judge noted that the author of the pre-sentence report had observed that Mr Al-Hassan was fast becoming a sexual predator and that his offending could possibly escalate in the future. The judge agreed with the assessment that Mr Al-Hassan presented a high risk of sexual harm to adult women and teenage girls. An extended sentence of imprisonment was therefore absolutely necessary. The judge went on to impose an extended determinate sentence with a custodial term of 7 years' imprisonment and an extension period of 3 years, with a concurrent sentence of 3 years on Count 2.

Turning to Mr Abdullah, the judge noted that he was 29 years of age and had no history of sexual offending although he had previous convictions for assault, threatening behaviour, being drunk and disorderly, and theft. The judge said he could detect no real mitigation. There was none to be found in the pre-sentence report. As this was Mr Abdullah's first conviction for a sexual offence, the judge did not make a finding of ‘dangerousness’ in his case. The judge had concerns about the risks that Mr Abdullah may pose in the future but he was satisfied that the length of the determinate sentence he was imposing, in conjunction with the indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order, would provide a measure of future protection for female members of the public. On Count 1 the sentence was 6 years' imprisonment.

The principal ground of appeal, and the specific ground on which the single judge granted leave, is that the sentencing judge wrongly categorised the offence of sexual assault. It was submitted in the court below, and is submitted before us, that the sexual assault should properly have been regarded as a Category 2A offence rather than 1A, because, it is said, none of the harm factors for Category 1 were present. The starting point for Category 2A would have been 2 years' custody with a range up to 4 years.

In their grounds of appeal, Mr Cleeve on behalf of Mr Al-Hassan and Ms Birch on behalf of Mr Abdullah both submit that the judge was wrong to find that the Category 1 harm factors of 'abduction' and 'severe psychological harm' were established.

Mr Cleeve submits that the judge erred in finding that the conduct of the appellant amounted to "abduction". He submits that G went willingly with the appellants; she could have got away from them at any time. She described them as drunk and stumbling. They would not have been capable of catching her. She had multiple opportunities to seek the assistance of other members of the public. She had her own mobile phone and used it; the appellants did not prevent her from doing so. She was directing them as to where to go when she led them back to Leicester Square. It was clear on the CCTV footage, he submitted, that she was completely free to walk straight up to the police officers in Leicester Square to ask for help; she did not need to walk past the police and mouth "help me". Mr Cleeve developed these points in his oral submissions this morning.

On behalf of Mr Abdullah, Ms Birch makes similar submissions in relation to abduction. She says that at no stage on the CCTV footage is G shown being physically restrained or detained or held against her will; she is walking freely, often some distance from the appellants. There were several parts of her ABE evidence where G suggested that it was she who was leading the appellants where she wished to take them. In her written submissions Ms Birch identified a number of passages from the ABE interview to that effect. G used their phone when they could not use the maps application. She directed them where she wished to go and they followed. The passages which Ms Birch identified talk about "leading" the appellants at various points. Ms Birch submits that at its highest there was a Category 2 Harm factor, that this was a sustained incident or, as she suggested this morning, prolonged detention.

Mr Boyce assisted Court with oral submissions this morning. We need not recite them in any great detail. In summary, he submitted that the question of whether the factor of abduction was established was a matter of fact and degree. He submitted that G was taken, controlled, coerced and detained. He illustrated that by reference to a number of passages from her ABE interview and the judge's summing-up, much of which recited the ABE interview passages word for word. Mr Boyce submitted that mouthing the words "help me”, despite the outward appearance, demonstrated that G was not freely accompanying the appellants. He also reminded us that the evidence was that she had been physically forced to imbibe the pill, with her jaws being opened by them physically.

In relation to the other Category 1 Harm factor relied upon by the judge, it is submitted that the offence of sexual assault did not cause G severe psychological harm. Mr Cleeve in his written submissions contends that G was already very severely troubled before this offence. She had at least two previous admissions to hospital under the Mental Health Act. There were multiple previous incidents of G planning and attempting to take her own life, which appear to have been increasing in frequency before the day of the offence. She was already on a downward spiral. Mr Cleeve points out that in the hours before the offence G had absconded from her home for the third time in ten days. She had taken an overdose of paracetamol in an attempt to take her own life, and even after the police intervened and she was safe, she ran away from the police, apparently intent on running into traffic. He submits that this was not a reaction to the sexual assault but the outworking of a pre-existing intent to take her own life. G was then compulsorily detained again. Mr Cleeve submits that the psychological situation detailed in G's mother's statement was a reaction to the uncertainty of the criminal justice process rather than harm arising from the sexual assault. He submits that the appellant should not have been sentenced on the basis that he bore all responsibility for the deterioration in G's psychological condition after the assault.

In his oral submissions Mr Cleeve developed those points and submitted that, in a situation such as this, there was a danger of punishing an offender for having a trial, if that is what prolonged any psychological harm which may have arisen originally from the offence itself. In the course of his oral submissions, however, in answer to the Court, Mr Cleeve accepted that he did not challenge the judge's finding of fact in relation to the causing of further severe psychological harm. Where he took issue with that finding was that it was inappropriate for the judge to have included the consequences of the offence (i.e. the giving of the ABE interview and giving evidence) rather than concentrating on the offending itself.

On behalf of Mr Abdullah, Ms Birch makes similar submissions. She points out that the author of the pre-sentence report herself says it was very difficult to quantify the harm caused because of G's pre-existing mental health struggles and other vulnerabilities. She submits that the judge's observation in his sentencing remarks that the consequences of the trial are also consequences of the offence which could not be separated, demonstrated an approach which was wrong in principle. In her oral submissions Ms Birch suggested that it would be wrong to treat the psychological harm as more serious because the appellants had pleaded not guilty and there had to be a trial. She submitted that the guideline focuses on psychological harm caused by the nature of the sexual assault.

We observe that neither Mr Cleeve nor Ms Birch were able to direct our attention to any authority for the central proposition they were advancing, that the psychological harm has to result from the offence itself not from the criminal process which followed.

In his oral submissions, Mr Boyce submitted that the judge was entitled to assess her continuing condition. He focused on the importance of the judge having a victim personal statement up to date after the trial in order to be in possession of the best possible evidence as to the overall impact of the offence.

More generally on behalf of Mr Al-Hassan, Mr Cleeve submits that the custodial term of 7 years was at the very highest end of the range for Category 1A and that even with the aggravating features and the additional offence of breach of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order, the offence did not call for a sentence at that level; rather he submits the offence fell into Category 2 with several aggravating features.

More generally on behalf of Mr Abdullah, Ms Birch submits that even if the judge was entitled to put the offence into Category 1A (which she disputes) the judge was wrong to make an uplift of 2 years from the guideline starting point of 4 years. In particular she submits that there was double counting when the judge treated it as an aggravating factor that the appellants had specifically targeted an obviously vulnerable victim. She submits that the vulnerability of the victim G was already part of the assessment of Category 1 harm. There was double counting, therefore, of her vulnerabilities. She submits that a sentence of 6 years was manifestly excessive and (to quote from her written submissions) represents a sentence which "…has overtaken the reality of the offending itself, namely, touching over clothes for very short moments".

We are quite satisfied that the judge was entitled to place this offence of sexual assault in Category 1A of the guideline for the reasons he explained in his sentencing remarks. The judge had presided over the trial and was uniquely well placed to make a factual assessment as to whether there was an element of abduction in the offence. He was best placed to see the offence in its full circumstances. He had seen G give evidence in her ABE interview and had seen her cross-examined.

The examples given by Ms Birch in her written submissions of the extracts from the ABE interview do not, we think, reflect the totality of the relevant evidence. We have already quoted extensively from the judge's summary of G's evidence taken from his sentencing remarks. However, we had before the hearing looked closely at the judge's summing-up of her evidence at pages 20-40 of the transcript. For example, at page 27B:

It is clear from the judge's summary of G's evidence in the summing-up, and from his sentencing remarks, that the judge was particularly struck by the significance of the fact that G felt it necessary to mouth the words "help me" to the police officers on her return to Leicester Square.

In granting leave in relation to the factor "abduction" in the guideline, the single judge drew attention to the decision of this Court in R v Joinal [2020] EWCA Crim 707. In that case the defendant had been convicted of raping two separate female victims on separate occasions. He had picked them up casually when they were very drunk in order to have sex with them. In sentencing, the judge identified in each case the fact that the complainants were "being taken somewhere not with their own free choice". The judge did not specify that this feature amounted to "abduction" within the meaning of the Rape guideline, which for present purposes is in the same terms as the guideline we are considering for sexual assault, but as this Court put it, the defendant well knew in that case that she was in no condition to make any independent choice in the matter.

In the commentary on that case the authors of Harris & Walker, Sentencing Principles, Procedure and Practice 2025, suggest at paragraph B3-025:

In the end we are quite satisfied that it was a question of fact and degree for the judge to assess whether the element of abduction in this case amounted to a Category 1 Harm factor. He was satisfied that it did. We agree.

As to the other disputed Category 1 factor, "severe psychological harm", we think once again that the judge was entitled to find that this was established. G was undoubtedly already suffering from serious mental health issues, but it cannot seriously be doubted that the overall impact of this experience of sexual assault at the hands of the appellants had a further significant impact on her mental health amounting to severe psychological injury.

As we have already quoted from the sentencing remarks, the judge said he was sure that the offence itself and the consequential need for G to give her ABE video interview and answer questions about it at trial "…caused further severe harm". Offenders must take their victims as they find them. The victim of an assault may have a thin skull, increasing the physical damage caused by striking it. Here the victim, G, was already very fragile psychologically and the impact of this offence and its aftermath exacerbated that fragility. We do not accept the proposition that the impact of the offence itself must be separated from the consequential process of having to re-live the ordeal in a lengthy police video interview and re-live it again at a criminal trial. All appropriate steps were taken to minimise the distress to her, but it is all too clear from her mother's statement just how serious the impact of this whole episode has been on G's mental health.

As we have already observed, no authority has been cited to us in support of the proposition which is advanced that the severe psychological harm must be caused solely by the offence itself rather than by a combination of that and the consequent criminal process. We note that in Joinal the Court accepted that in the case of one of the victims "the ordeal of giving evidence at trial was acute" and in the case of the other victim, who was already suffering from mental health problems and alcoholism before she was raped, the impact upon her of the offending was "predicably severe".

We remind ourselves that section 63(1) (b) of the Sentencing Act 2020 requires the judge when considering the question of harm to consider "any harm which the offence caused, was intended to cause, or might foreseeably have caused". We are, therefore, quite satisfied that the judge was correct to place this offence of sexual assault in Category 1A, with a starting point of 4 years for each of the appellants.

In addition to the aggravating factors which the judge then went on to identify, we think the presence of multiple factors of both culpability and harm would itself have justified an uplift from the guideline starting point, within the range, in accordance with the express terms of the guideline.

In the case of Mr Al-Hassan, the uplift was 3 years from the starting point. The judge had to reflect not only the aggravating factors he identified but also the separate criminality of the breach offence in Count 2, for which a concurrent sentence of 3 years' imprisonment was imposed. His previous conviction for similar offences of sexual assault was itself a further serious aggravating factor. The custodial term of 7 years in his case was fully justified. An extended sentence was necessary to protect the public.

Mr Al-Hassan's sentence was not manifestly excessive and his appeal is dismissed.

We turn to Mr Abdullah. In his case the judge made an uplift of 2 years from the guideline starting point of 4 years. Some aggravating features present in Mr Al-Hassan's case were absent in Mr Abdullah's case. However, this was a joint offence for which the appellants bore equal responsibility. It was Mr Abdullah who made the first physical approach to G, offering her his coat as a ruse to engage in physical contact leading to sexual assault; as the judge put it, "a twisted act of kindness".

We do not accept Ms Birch's submission that there was double-counting of G's vulnerability. Her vulnerability was part of her mental health problems which were exacerbated by this offending and the criminal process thereafter. That vulnerability was part of the assessment of harm under the guideline. By contrast, targeting a vulnerable individual as an aggravating factor went to the culpability of the appellants. There was no overlap. They were separate factors, both of which made the offence all the more serious. In the same way there was no overlap between the culpability factor that the appellants had tried to ply G with alcohol and/or drugs and the aggravating factor that they were themselves drunk and under the influence of drugs when committing the offence. We think the judge was fully justified in increasing the sentence to 6 years' imprisonment.

Mr Abdullah's sentence was not manifestly excessive, and his appeal is likewise dismissed.