September 2021

Paedophiles across the region jailed after major operation

A police operation to snare sex offenders has seen more than 200 people jailed

Paedophiles across the region have been put behind bars for a total of more than 500 years thanks to a specialist Regional Organised Crime Unit.

The team of officers are active on social media, instant messaging apps and other online platforms looking for people seeking to groom children online and intercepting them before they’re able to meet youngsters.

Under an operation codenamed Project Atari, which launched in late 2016 and early 2017, the team has achieved nearly 200 convictions against offenders trying to groom children over the internet.

And the collective prison sentences handed down to them has now topped 500 years.

The latest is 28-year-old Hussein Abukar, from Wyndcliff Road in Small Heath, who was jailed for 30 months on Thursday, September 9 after admitting arranging the commission of a child sex offence on March 31.

He sent sexually explicit messages to someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy, but was actually an officer working as part of the team.

Abukar arranged to meet the boy at his home address but was met by West Midlands Police officers and subsequently arrested.

On March 31 this year Abukar made contact with the profile claiming he was 25, the court heard. At first he said ‘hi’ and referred to himself as ‘Jamal’ before sending a number of pictures, one of which was of a penis.

Abukar told the ‘boy’: “Don’t be shy I’m not here to judge I don’t care if you are younger”.

When the undercover officer emphasised he was ’15’ the defendant replied that he ‘liked young Twinks’ – a slang term which typically refers to homosexual young males.

Abukar demanded a picture in return to prove he was not “being cat-fished or pranked”, said the prosecutor.

He then arranged for the apparent schoolboy to come to his address but when he had a knock on the door at around 3.40pm that day, it was the police.

Officers seized his mobile phone and also noticed an open pack of condoms on his bedside table.

He was also made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years and made to sign the sex offenders register indefinitely.