{"id":397080,"date":"2026-04-14T00:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/397080\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T00:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:44:10","slug":"man-jailed-for-six-years-for-sexually-assaulting-teenage-girl-in-sligo-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/397080\/","title":{"rendered":"Man jailed for six years for sexually assaulting teenage girl in Sligo \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former teacher who overpowered a vulnerable teenage girl and sexually assaulted her after he \u201cbeckoned\u201d her down a dark alley in Sligo<\/a> has been jailed for six years.<\/p>\n

Ziaullhaq Safi (37), from Afghanistan<\/a>, was unanimously convicted by a jury at Sligo Circuit Criminal Court<\/a> of sexual assault and of providing remuneration to a child, then aged 16, for sexual exploitation in April 2023.<\/p>\n

The father of five, of Market Yard, Sligo, appeared for sentencing before Judge Roderick Maguire, who was presiding in Mullingar<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

The trial heard that the complainant met friends in Sligo town at 4.30 pm and went drinking. <\/p>\n

Later, the complainant and her friend went to a local takeaway when they saw Safi, who worked at the fast-food restaurant. <\/p>\n

He \u201cbeckoned\u201d them into the alleyway.<\/p>\n

The judge recalled how the jury heard he brought them behind a locked door where he sexually assaulted the complainant, forcibly kissing her, pulling up her top and sucking her nipples.<\/p>\n

She resisted and told him to stop, but Safi exposed himself. <\/p>\n

The court heard she was scared, panicked, nervous and thought she would not come out alive. <\/p>\n

He later brought her back into his workplace and \u201chanded her pizza and winked at her\u201d. <\/p>\n

The prosecution\u2019s case was that, in addition to the sexual assault, he offered her food as payment.<\/p>\n

Jurors heard her evidence that her friend was present during the eight-minute attack.<\/p>\n

A victim-impact statement read in court by Det Garda Kieran Higgins expressed how the young woman, now aged 19, could not look at herself in the mirror.<\/p>\n

She suffered flashbacks, nightmares and suicidal thoughts. The judge emphasised how she was \u201cpicking up pieces of her life and anticipating a lifetime of healing\u201d.<\/p>\n

A specialist interview was conducted by garda\u00ed with the girl, who had vulnerabilities and grew up in care.<\/p>\n

The jury heard from 13 witnesses and viewed CCTV footage.<\/p>\n

It also emerged that Safi had taught children in Afghanistan. He fled his homeland after persecution by the Taliban<\/a>, his father was shot and their home was burned. He left his wife and children behind, but later reunited with them through family reunification procedures.<\/p>\n

Safi did not speak English, listened to the proceedings with the aid of an interpreter and showed no emotion as he was jailed. <\/p>\n

He had been in custody on remand since the jury found him guilty on March 13th last.<\/p>\n

Safi had no prior convictions and had an industrious work record since coming to Ireland, the court heard.<\/p>\n

However, the judge said that while the incident was not planned, it was an invasive and sustained sexual assault on a vulnerable child who was overpowered and kept behind a closed door in a dark alleyway.<\/p>\n

There was limited mitigation, he stated, stressing the significant age gap and the girl being under the influence of alcohol \u201cmagnified\u201d her vulnerability.<\/p>\n

In addition to the six-year sentence for the sexual assault, the judge imposed a concurrent term of four years and three months for the second charge.<\/p>\n

In his closing remarks, he highlighted the teenager had been served alcohol in three specific licensed premises and garda\u00ed ought to consider that when those premises wish to renew their licences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former teacher who overpowered a vulnerable teenage girl and sexually assaulted her after he \u201cbeckoned\u201d her down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12686,51250,61,60,57,43,14169,21413],"class_list":["post-397080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-afghanistan","tag-criminal-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mullingar","tag-news","tag-sligo","tag-taliban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}