A 54-year-old married man has been jailed for 11 years after being found guilty of having sex with a 15-year-old girl – but the court heard his wife is standing by him.
Jawwad Akram was sentenced at Harrow Crown Court, in north-west London, on Wednesday.
He was found guilty of sexual activity with a child and two counts of facilitating the travel of another person with the view of exploitation, which covers the period from August to October 2021.
Judge Rosa Dean gave a concurrent jail term for the three counts and Akram must serve at least two thirds of this in custody.
She condemned Akram’s “predatory” behaviour and said she believes claims he acted like a “racist” towards the victim – who cannot be named for legal reasons – and her family.
Harrow Crown Court
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In her sentencing remarks, Judge Dean said: “You took [the girl] away from her family and then from her foster home in order to exploit her by having sex with her. […]
“She was a child you groomed, exploited and got pregnant.”
Akram, of Edgware, north London, wore a dark blazer and a black open-collared shirt and was silent as the sentence was delivered.
Judge Dean imposed an indefinite restraining order barring Akram from contacting the girl or her family, and put him on the sexual offenders register for life.
She also made a sexual harm prevention order, without time limit.
She prohibited Akram from contacting any children under 16 or from having unsupervised contact with those under this age.
He was also banned from living in the same household as any child under the age of 16, unless social services give permission.
Daniel Chadwick, defending Akram, said “he has a supportive wife who sticks by him”.
Akram repeatedly denied having sex with the teenager after he was first arrested but DNA evidence proved he was the biological father of a baby she went on to have aborted.
Akram had claimed he believed the girl was 19 and that he had no contact with her once he found out her true age in September 2021, but a jury convicted him.
The girl’s family said Akram knew she was under 16.
The fertilisation likely occurred in September, the prosecution told the court.
Jurors previously heard the 15-year-old went missing in August after her family refused to allow Akram to marry her.
He allegedly took her to stay in a rented flat in Dundee and the girl’s mother did not know where she was until more than a month later.
In September, staff at a London hotel called police after they became concerned about the age difference between Akram and the girl when they checked in.
Akram was arrested and bailed under the condition that he did not contact the girl, who was put into foster care the next day.
The girl then went missing from her foster family’s home in Kent in October and Akram had allegedly made arrangements to take her back to Scotland.
He was arrested at his home several days later and the girl was found safe in a Dundee flat the following day.
The girl’s mother previously told the court that Akram had offered to pay her “as much money as you wish” to wed the teenager when he visited her home.
She recalled that Akram, who is originally from Pakistan, called her a gypsy, to which the mother says she replied “even if I am a gypsy, I do not sell my daughter”.