Shoaib Mohammed
Introduction
Shoaib Mohammed, 34, of Firth Park Road, Sheffield, was jailed for eleven years at Leicester Crown Court on October 29, 2026, for grooming and sexually abusing a teenage girl he first contacted on Snapchat in 2021, when she was 14. Mohammed befriended the girl, convinced her a romantic relationship was starting, lied about his age and concealed that he was married. After months of increasingly sexualised online grooming, he persuaded her — then 15 — to leave her home in Leicester and travel to him in Sheffield, where the abuse continued over several days in hotel rooms. He pleaded guilty to a series of child sex and indecent images offences only after years of denial, and received an eleven-year sentence with a three-year extended licence and a 15-year sexual harm prevention order.
Background Information
The Crown Prosecution Service’s East Midlands office announced the sentence and set out how the case was built. Mohammed contacted the girl via Snapchat in 2021 when she was 14 and groomed her over the following months. In 2022, when the victim was 15, he persuaded her to leave her home in Leicester to visit him in Sheffield. He drove her to Manchester and sexually abused her in his car before returning to Sheffield, where he secured hotel rooms to continue sexually abusing her over several days — leaving her abandoned in hotel rooms for hours at a time, including overnight, while he returned to his home life. Her family reported her missing while she was away; police searching for her connected her to Mohammed, and he — knowing the authorities and her family were looking for her — panicked and sent her home. Detectives later discovered he had carried out internet searches for terms including “grooming,” “Jimmy Savile” and “Op Yewtree,” searches the Sheffield Star reported alongside its coverage of his sentencing.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted and sentenced. Mohammed pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of causing or inciting a child to sexual activity, and three counts of possessing indecent images of a child; he was sentenced to eleven years with a three-year extended licence in October 2026.
Mohammed denied all involvement when police traced him, “even in the face of overwhelming evidence,” the CPS said, and maintained that denial until he eventually pleaded guilty to the charges: five counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of causing or inciting a child to sexual activity, and three counts of possessing indecent images. His defence of “I thought she was over 18” collapsed under phone evidence: officers going through his phone found several references to the victim’s age, including conversations in which she talked about her mock GCSEs and school life and asked him directly whether she would be allowed to travel alone to meet him if she was under 16. Faced with that, he denied any sexual activity — a claim the CPS rebutted with preserved forensic evidence from the initial enquiries. The prosecution also showed the defence CCTV of Mohammed checking into the first two hotels alone before taking the victim inside, and witness accounts that other hotels had challenged him about booking a room with someone of the victim’s age — evidence, the CPS said, that he knew his activities would cause suspicion. He had also kept images from the grooming period, when he persuaded the victim to send him explicit images and videos.
The CPS then engaged with his defence representatives, making clear he could not hope to be acquitted at trial given the strength of the evidence of his targeting, grooming and sexual activity with the victim, and that he could not have held any reasonable belief about her real age. The pleas followed. At Leicester Crown Court on October 29, he received eleven years’ imprisonment with a three-year extended licence, and a 15-year sexual harm prevention order limiting his contact with under-18s and his online activity.
Public Reaction and Consequences
Nicola Potts, a District Crown Prosecutor in the CPS East Midlands rape and serious sexual offences unit, said “the evidence that this man groomed and abused the victim in this case was conclusive,” and that his continued denials had taken years of work to answer. “Shoaib Mohammed preyed on a young victim while posing as a caring friend and romantic partner. The way he manipulated her and abused her at such a young age has caused her far-reaching damage,” Potts said, adding that having her voice heard in court would, she hoped, help the young woman’s recovery and “show that he alone is responsible for what happened to her.” DC Daljinder Gill of Leicestershire Police used the sentencing to appeal for other potential victims: “Following the sentence, we want to hear from anyone else who may have experienced similar behaviour from Mohammed,” saying anyone with concerns would be “listened to, taken seriously and supported.”
Current Status
Mohammed is serving an eleven-year prison sentence with a three-year extended licence imposed October 29, 2026, and is subject to a 15-year sexual harm prevention order restricting contact with under-18s and his online activity. The extended licence means he remains under supervision for three years beyond his custodial term, and can be returned to custody for breaches. Leicestershire Police’s appeal for further victims keeps the investigation’s public posture open after sentencing.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Mohammed’s years of denial — the claimed belief she was over 18, the denial of sexual activity, the defiance of “overwhelming evidence” — ended in guilty pleas only when the CPS made clear a trial was unwinnable, and the sentencing record now documents each defence falling in turn: the age references on his own phone, the forensic evidence, the hotel CCTV, the witnesses who had challenged his bookings. At 34 he begins an eleven-year term that carries him into his mid-forties, with the extended licence and the 15-year SHPO keeping state supervision around him after release. For the victim, groomed from 14 and abused across two cities at 15, the case ended with the prosecutor’s public framing: he alone is responsible for what happened to her.