July 2010

Chip shop owner guilty of ‘groping’

The boss of a chippy who molested two teenage girls who worked for him has been put on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

Mohammed Javed, 39, admitted groping the girls when they worked for him at Luci and Lina’s Fish Bar, in High Street, Kempston

The father-of-two from Luton, a joint-owner of the chip shop, was ordered to pay £2,415 in costs and compensation, including £200 to each girl, at Luton Crown Court on Wednesday.

He was also given a sixmonth suspended sentence, a three-month curfew and put on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

Javed, whose lawyer wife is pregnant, started to ‘push the boundaries’ after taking over the business in the summer of 2008, said prosecutor Beverly Cripps.

Ms Cripps said Javed came up from behind and put his hand on the breasts of one of the 16-year-old girls.

The other girl, also 16, was groped and the police were called after she told her mother.

Javed initially denied eight charges of sexual assault against the two teenagers and a woman in her 30s, but changed his plea to guilty against the teenagers.

On the judge’s direction, the jury found him not guilty of two charges of sexual assault against the woman and the other four charges relating to the two girls were left on the file.

Defence barrister Jacqueline Lule said Javed had been publicly embarrassment by the case.

Judge John Bevan QC said: “This sort of behaviour in the workplace is wholly unacceptable.

“I would advise you to think very carefully about how you behave in your shop in the future. Get back to work and don’t come back before the court again.”