A ringleader of the Telford abuse scandal exposed by the Mirror has admitted “many similar offences” while in jail, documents reveal. But a last ditch bid by the Government to halt his release halfway through his third jail sentence for sexual offences has failed. We revealed last month the blunders in the parole hearing of vile abuser Mohammed Ali Sultan, who has been in prison since 2012. Officials failed to warn one of his victims that the parole hearing was taking place in November. Then the victim’s personal statement, which set out “very poignantly the emotional and psychological impact" of Sultan's vile crimes, was not given to the panel who decided to free him.
Last month, the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood asked the Parole Board to reconsider clearing Sultan for release, arguing it was “legally irrational”. But now the Parole Board has rejected her application saying it was “hopeless” and “bound to fail”, clearing Sultan for release. Sultan “has three separate convictions relating to the systematic sexual abuse of young girls in Telford by Pakistani men between 2001 and 2009”, the Parole Board noted.
The first was in 2012 when he was jailed for seven years for “controlling a girl as a child prostitute and sexual activity with a child”. One of his victims was 13 years old. In 2015 he was sentenced to another 11 years for the “rape and attempted rape of a girl”, which he denied at his trial but subsequently admitted to in prison. Sultan was jailed a third time in 2019, alongside three others, for “rape and indecent assault”.
The trial was the result of Operation Vapour, launched by West Mercia Police in 2018 after the Sunday Mirror revealed that up to 1,000 girls had been abused in the Shropshire town over four decades. The victim in that third case was a vulnerable girl who was "passed around like a piece of meat", forced to perform sex acts in a churchyard and raped above a shop. The judge at Birmingham Crown Court told him in 2019: “You’ve shown no remorse in relation to the present allegations. You remain, clearly, a very dangerous man.”.
Sultan denied those offences and the Parole Board said that he “continues to deny them”. It said: “Although they are the subject of the last conviction, these offences were the earliest in time being committed in 2001 or 2002 when [Sultan] was 15 or 16.” But it added that: “While serving his sentence, the Respondent has admitted committing many similar offences over the period 2007 to 2009.”.
Kate, not her real name, was the victim in the 2015 trial. She asked the Justice Secretary to apply for "reconsideration" of Sultan’s release and told us: “This is even more concerning than I thought it would be. He’s admitted to other offences but it says he hasn’t admitted guilt for the offences he was convicted of. How do they think psychologists and therapy can rehabilitate him if he’s never accepted what he did?”.
Justice Secretary Mahmood applied to ask the Parole Board to reconsider Sultan’s release on January 21. She argued that the panel who approved release “overly and inappropriately relied on [Sultan’s] self-report in deciding that the test for release was met” and “did not sufficiently challenge or explore in depth the evidence of the professional witnesses” She also said they “failed to give adequate reasons for their decision to release”.
But John Saunders of the Parole Board rejected the application. He said the panel included “an experienced Judge” and that “the whole panel would have been well aware of the ability of some prisoners to give evidence which is deceptive”. Although Sultan denied the offences he was convicted of in 2019, Mr Saunders said that he had “admitted not only other similar behaviour that he had been convicted of but also other similar behaviour that he had not been convicted of”.
He added: “That means that he was admitting the sort of conduct which led to the index convictions and that he could attend appropriate courses to reduce his risk.” Mr Saunders ruled that: “In my judgment this is a hopeless application for reconsideration which was bound to fail. The Applicant [the Justice Secretary] would have seen all the documentation in this case before it went to the Board. She could have decided, if she was concerned about the reports submitted by professionals employed by her, to make representations to be considered by the panel. For the reasons I have given, I do not consider that the decision was irrational and accordingly the application for reconsideration is refused.”.
Kate added: “The victims haven’t even been mentioned in this. None of the professional witnesses experienced what he did to people he considered lesser than him. They were all in a position of power over him. If he doesn’t admit his crimes, does he even know what rape or consent is? Is he safe to release?”. Kate was raped in her YMCA flat in Telford days before her A-levels, first by Sultan’s cousin and then by Sultan. She said: "He used to say he would make my life hell and said I didn’t want to play games with him. He would say he would kick my door in and when I said, ‘You won’t because of the locks’, he said, ‘I will kick your head in then’.”.
