{"id":583915,"date":"2026-05-14T16:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/583915\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T16:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:51:10","slug":"former-imam-sentenced-to-life-for-sexual-assaults-in-east-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/583915\/","title":{"rendered":"Former imam sentenced to life for sexual assaults in east London"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was found guilty in February of nine counts of rape, four counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual assault of a child under 13, five counts of rape of a child under 13 and one count of assault by penetration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite his convictions, the court received letters of support for Khan from his family and some members of the community ahead of sentencing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Det Ch Insp Jennie Ronan, whose team led the investigation, said: &#8220;Abdul Khan presented himself as a respectable man who could be trusted. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;However, this was far from the truth, and he instead preyed upon and took advantage of others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Today, I want to focus on the victim-survivors, who have shown remarkable bravery in reporting Khan and great strength throughout the trial.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Melissa Garner, specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: &#8220;Abdul Halim Khan used their deeply held beliefs to instil fear and silence in them, making them believe their families would be at risk if they ever spoke out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An NSPCC spokesperson said: &#8220;It is deeply disturbing that Khan abused his position as a trusted faith leader to commit sexual offences against girls and women using fear and manipulation to control and silence those he targeted.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He was found guilty in February of nine counts of rape, four counts of sexual assault, two counts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-583915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}