Former teacher from Hemel Hempstead jailed for 16 months for sending sexually explicit messages to children

The 40-year-old pleaded guilty to the charges last month
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A former teacher from Hemel Hempstead has been jailed for targeting young girls with sexually explicit messages, images and videos.

Khaled Miah, 40, of Belswains Lane, pleaded guilty to attempting to cause a child to watch an image of sexual activity, two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and possessing two category C indecent images of a child at an earlier court hearing.

Today (Monday) he was sentenced at Luton Crown Court to 16 months in prison.

Khaled Miah was sentenced at Luton Crown Court to 16 months in prisonKhaled Miah was sentenced at Luton Crown Court to 16 months in prison
Khaled Miah was sentenced at Luton Crown Court to 16 months in prison

In addition, he will be added to the Sex Offenders Register, and will be made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) for ten years.

Miah was living and working in Luton in November 2019, when he first used an online chat site to talk to someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.

He took her number and began a conversation with her on WhatsApp; talking to her in a highly sexualised manner and sending her explicit sexual images and a video of himself.

He was arrested a few days later as a result of proactive police operation and was released under investigation.

He was then arrested for a second time in June 2020, when the Internet Child Abuse Investigation Team (ICAIT) discovered that he had been talking to someone he believed to be 12-years-old in the same way and using the same methods.

His phone was seized and investigating officers found indecent images of children saved to cloud storage that was linked to Miah’s device.

Paul Baddeley, Investigating Officer from ICAIT said: “We are pleased that Miah received a custodial sentence and that he is being punished for the offences he committed.

"As a former teacher, he thought he was talking to children the same age as the pupils he once taught, and to be caught not once, but twice, clearly shows that he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.

"We benefited from working closely with the digital media investigation team, which was instrumental in securing the evidence from Miah’s phone.

“We are dealing with more and more online grooming and child sex offences, especially over the last few months, with children spending more time online and predators have used this opportunity to target them.

"Usually these offenders try and encourage the victims to meet them in real life – thankfully it wasn’t the case in this situation – but shows just how easily this could happen.

“This is a great opportunity for us to reiterate to parents how important it is to ensure their children know how to keep themselves safe online and to encourage them to tell someone if they have come across something online they don’t feel comfortable with.

“Any child can become the victim of grooming, no matter what their gender, ethnicity or background. If you think that this might be happening to you or someone you know then it’s important you speak out and tell someone you trust.”

An NSPCC spokesperson said: “Every day, children are being targeted online by predators like Miah – so it is vital that online harm laws are brought in to force tech companies to make their platforms safe and to prevent this abuse from happening.

“If they fail in their duty of care to protect children, they should be fined or even face criminal sanctions.”

Children can contact Childline 24/7 on 0800 1111. Adults concerned about the wellbeing of a child can phone the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 8005000 or email [email protected].

The NSPCC Share Aware website also contains advice and tips about how children can keep themselves safe online.

To report concerns around child sexual abuse, call police on 101.

Parents can visit the Parents Protect website, which is run by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, for lots of useful resources to help prevent online child sexual abuse. It also contains a list of organisations and resources focusing on keeping children safe in the digital world.

For advice and support on grooming and child sexual exploitation, visit: www.bedfordshireagainstcse.org.