September 2014
Sexual predator who groomed young girls with drugs is jailed for 12 years
A sexual predator who groomed young girls with drugs, money and booze has been jailed for 12 years.
Saquib Hamid twice had sex with a 15-year-old schoolgirl and also tried to persuade a 17-year-old into prostitution.
He impressed girls he met via Facebook, by driving them around in his BMW car.
He then plied with them with cocaine and cannabis at his “well appointed” home in Enderby.
When the police raided his house in Old Church Road they discovered a stash of cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamine and cannabis.
Hamid, 35, a call centre worker, was convicted of 24 offences by a jury at a recent Leicester Crown Court trial and was sentenced on Friday.
He protested his innocence at court, but after being found guilty admitted much of his wrongdoing to the probation officer who prepared his pre-sentence report.
Judge Simon Hammond said that Hamid was initially charged with possessing class A and B drugs following the raid and released on bail, in February last year.
He said: “Whilst on bail in August last year he befriended six young girls, aged between 14 and 17.
“He found some of them on Facebook and arranged to meet them, usually at night, and took them home.
“He plied them with alcohol, cocaine and cannabis and sometimes they stayed overnight.
“There’s no doubt he hoped sexual activity would occur.
“One 15-year-old slept with him overnight and they twice had consensual sex – when he knew her age.
“Having plied another girl, aged 17, with cocaine, he tried three times to persuade her to become a prostitute, but wisely she refused.”
Judge Hammond said during sentencing: “All these girls were vulnerable and impressionable and were hanging around with him late at night.
“One wonders what their mothers were thinking was going on?
“He lived in a well-appointed house, had a BMW and money – and would have made quite an impression on those girls.
“The courts have a duty to protect young girls from themselves as well as sexual predators like this defendant.
“He was 34 at the time and much older than them.
“The pre-sentence report says he now admits most of these offences.
“What a shame he didn’t have the moral courage to plead guilty, if only to spare the girls from giving evidence.
“He described to the probation officer how cocaine had ‘fried’ his brain cells.
“The pre-sentence report says he targeted young females and set about grooming them with money, drugs and alcohol and behaved manipulatively – I agree with that conclusion.
“He obviously had a sexual interest in teenage girls.”
The court heard that on September 18 last year the police again raided his home and found a container with traces of cocaine in it.
There were also a large number of dealer bags and scales.
Hamid was convicted of possessing 16.69 grams of cocaine, 23.39 grams of ecstasy, 6.52 grams of amphetamine, and 3.59 grams of cannabis, with intent to supply, on February 27 last year.
He was found guilty of 17 offences of supplying either cocaine or cannabis to six teenage girls, between August and October, and two counts of sexual activity with a girl under 16.
Hamid was also convicted of one offence of attempting to arrange the prostitution of a child under 18, between July and September, 2013.
Claire Robinson, mitigating, said: “The admissions he has made to the probation officer since the trial go some way to demonstrating he’s beginning to realise what he has done and it’s the first step to address his offending to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
She said he had a problem with cocaine but went through detoxification whilst on remand in custody and is now a “peer mentor” helping other inmates who have misused drugs.
He intends to study for an Open University course during his sentence.
Hamid was placed on a sexual offences prevention order banning unsupervised contact with girls under 16.
He will have to enrol on a sex offender register for life
