One of the ringleaders of the Telford grooming gang scandal – exposed by the Mirror – has been cleared for parole halfway through his third jail sentence for sexual offences.
But one of his victims has told the Mirror she wants the Justice Secretary to intervene and ask the Parole Board to reconsider its decision. Sultan was found guilty in 2019 of child rape and three counts of indecent assault and sentenced to eight years.
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. An independent inquiry commissioned by Telford council went on to back our findings.
Mohammed Ali Sultan outside Stafford Crown Court in 2011 ahead of his first conviction for child sex offences
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Kate, not her real name, was raped by Sultan who threatened to “kick her head in” if she refused. She said: “It is scary, when you think of the number of convictions he has got. It puts him as a high risk offender. He is a serial rapist. He is a dangerous person. I will ask them to reconsider. I feel I have a duty to keep the public safe and I don’t think he is a safe person. I am not convinced the authorities will do a good job of that. I don’t feel he has been in prison long enough for the crimes he has committed.”
Sultan was jailed in 2019 alongside three others for sexually abusing 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. We revealed the previous year how another victim was lured into the gang’s grooming network by Sultan, who had sold her phone number to other men in Telford.
Sultan had already been jailed for seven years in 2012 after admitting sexually abusing two girls, one aged just 13. He was locked up for another six years in 2015 when he was convicted of two counts of rape and one of attempted rape. The victim in that case was Kate, who says she was raped in her YMCA flat in Telford days before her A-levels, first by Sultan’s cousin and then by Sultan: “When Sultan came round two days after the rape I was still in shock, still traumatised. I had no fight left in me. 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’.”
Sunday Mirror front page from March 11 2018 exposing the Telford abuse scandal
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Sultan was refused parole in 2019, just weeks before he was charged with the third set of offences. Jailing him a third time, Judge Melbourne Inman QC told him, at Birmingham Crown Court: “You’ve shown no remorse in relation to the present allegations. You remain, clearly, a very dangerous man.”
A Parole Board hearing in November heard Sultan’s bid for early release. The panel heard the 38-year old has “undertaken accredited programmes to address decision making and better ways of thinking, and to address sex offending.” It considered the “risk factors” at the time of Sultan’s offences, which included “wanting sexual gratification, having contact with female children, having anti-social friends, problem drinking, offending to get money, his attitudes towards his .. offending, and using unhelpful ways of thinking”.
The panel also had a victim impact statement which ” clearly conveyed the impact of Mr Sultan’s crimes and the consequences of his offending”. It looked at the “release plan” prepared by Sultan’s probation officer and decided “this plan was robust enough to manage Mr Sultan in the community at this stage because he has completed all necessary work to address his offending, has reflected on his offending and has insight into his risk factors”. Under the release plan he has to live in “designated accommodation” and there are “strict limitations on Mr Sultan’s contacts, movements and activities”.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is being urged to ask the Parole Board to reconsider plans to release Mohammed Ali Sultan
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Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publis)
A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: “We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board has directed the release of Mohammed Ali Sultan following an oral hearing. Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community. A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.
“Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead up to an oral hearing. Evidence from witnesses such as probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements may be given at the hearing. It is standard for the prisoner and witnesses to be questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more. Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.”
The Ministry of Justice has been approached for comment.
Kate says she only found out about the plan to release Sultan this week, during the 21-day “reconsideration” period before he is freed. She said: “You try to get on with life as normal. I work full-time, I have got a responsible job. I haven’t told my employers I have these two men in prison. I have this added stress that I have to deal with privately.”
She said that the focus on the grooming scandal by far right figures like US tech tycoon Elon Musk was causing her even more distress. She said: “I am also having to deal with the far right who are obsessed with what happened to me. I have a few proper stalkers. If you don’t agree with their far right views they turn on you and they are absolutely vile. I’m more worried about crazy people online than I am about the gang, if I am honest.”