Man jailed after child sexual exploitation probe

By GRANT McCABE
Published 9th Oct 2014, 14:59 BST
Javaid Akhond was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow. Picture: John DevlinJavaid Akhond was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow. Picture: John Devlin
Javaid Akhond was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow. Picture: John Devlin
A FAILED asylum seeker is behind bars after a large scale probe into child sexual exploitation.

Javaid Akhond, 20, preyed on young girls, luring them into sex by splashing the cash and inviting them to drink-fuelled house parties.

One victim – aged just 12 when targeted while she was out ice skating with friends – told a jury how she thought he “loved” her.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

• Keep up to date with all aspects of Scottish life with The Scotsman iPhone app, completely free to download and use.

Akhond was snared as part of the Police Scotland’s Operation Dash – set up in 2013 to root out child sexual exploitation across the Strathclyde area.

He is now in jail after a judge today locked him for six years in what is thought to be the probe’s first conviction.

Akhond arrived in Scotland as a teenager seeking asylum from Afghanistan and got a job working in a fast food restaurant.

He built up a close network of friends and Akhond soon began frequenting Glasgow city centre on the hunt for young “highly impressionable” girls.

Prosecutor Richard Goddard told a jury at the High Court in Glasgow: “Javaid Akhond was a man who set off on an easily recognisable course of criminal conduct towards females of a certain age bracket and had sex with them whether the law allowed or not.

“In one girl’s words ‘he wasn’t bothered’.”

He first started grooming a 12 year-old girl in 2011 after approaching her as she was ice skating with friends in the city’s George Square.

The youngster initially claimed she was 16 – but within days Akhond found out her true age.

But the court heard that ‘made no odds’ to him.

Hide Ad