February 2015
Immigrant who sexually assaulted young boy in Grosvenor Centre toilets jailed for 21 months
A Somalian man sexually assaulted a young boy in the toilets of the Grosvenor Shopping Centre in Northampton less than two weeks after he had been released from an immigration removal centre has been jailed for 21 months
Abdigani Diirshe, aged 40, of no fixed abode, appeared at Northampton Crown Court on Friday after he admitted touching the boy, who was wearing a school uniform, while he was standing at the urinal.
The court heard that Diirshe deliberately stood next to the boy when he entered the toilets in the shopping centre on December 16.
Dominic Woolard, prosecuting, said, after the boy finished urinating, Diirshe sexually assaulted him
Mr Thomas said: “The young boy did not move during the incident as he was worried about what the man was going to do to him.”
Mr Woolard said Diirshe was challenged by a security guard but left the scene without being detained.
The court heard that Diirshe was arrested the next day after he was seen loitering close to the Grosvenor Centre toilets.
In interview, Diirshe, who is a Somalian immigrant, claimed he had no recollection of the incident as he had been drinking heavily.
He told officers that he had no sexual interest in chidlren but had gone to the toilets to try to find an adult man to have sex with.
Judge Rupert Mayo, sentencing, said Diirshe’s behaviour ws “clearly predatory.”
He said: “This was not simply an opportunist crime. I’m satisfied there was a degree of planning that puts it in the higher sentencing category.”
Diirshe, who had only been in Northampton a couple of weeks after being released from The Verne immigration removal centre, was given a 10-year sexual offenders prevention order.
The order prohibts him from being in a public lavatory if a person under 16 years old is in attendance and bans him from loitering within 10 metres of a public lavatory.
