Exclusive:
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmoud wants the release of Mohammed Ali Sultan reconsidered after his victim’s voice was shut out of a parole hearing
The Justice Secretary wants the imminent prison release of a ringleader of the Telford abuse scandal to be halted after a bungled parole hearing.
Officials failed to warn one of Mohammed Ali Sultan’s victims that the hearing, halfway through a third jail sentence for sexual offences, was taking place last month. In a second “deeply unfortunate” blunder, the victim’s personal statement, which set out “very poignantly the emotional and psychological impact” of Sultan’s vile crimes, was not given to the panel who decided to free him.
The Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, in her role as Lord Chancellor, has asked the Parole Board to reconsider the decision to free Sultan, arguing it was “legally irrational”. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Our thoughts remain with all the victims in this despicable case. Public protection is our first priority. After careful consideration, the Lord Chancellor has asked the Parole Board to reconsider its decision to release Mohammed Ali Sultan from prison.”
Sultan was found guilty in 2019 of child rape and three counts of indecent assault and sentenced to eight years in prison. The judge at Birmingham Crown Court told him: “You’ve shown no remorse in relation to the present allegations. You remain, clearly, a very dangerous man.” The trial was the result of Operation Vapour, launched by West Mercia Police in 2018 after the Sunday Mirror revealed that up to 1,000 girls had been abused in the Shropshire town over four decades.
Sultan was already serving a six year sentence for raping Kate, not her real name, and threatening to “kick her head in” if she refused him. When Kate found out earlier this month he was being released and her voice not heard, she asked the Parole Board to think again. She said: “I actually thought about not appealing because I knew this is only going to anger the abuser. This might delay his release when the outcome was going to be the same, and put me at risk of him retaliating upon his release. But then I remembered that this is my human right to ask for reconsideration and I’m not going to let intimidation or fear of retaliation put me off exercising my human right.”
Sultan had previously been jailed for seven years in 2012 after admitting sexually abusing two girls, one aged just 13, before he was convicted of raping Kate in 2015. He was jailed a third time in 2019, alongside three others, for sexually abusing a vulnerable girl who was “passed around like a piece of meat”, forced to perform sex acts in a churchyard and raped above a shop. We revealed earlier this month that Sultan had been approved for release after a review in December.
The Parole Board told us this was “undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care” and after the panel “read and digested hundreds of pages of evidence”, including on the impact his crimes had on victims. Kate told us she only found out about the plan to release Sultan after the decision had been taken, during the 21-day “reconsideration” period before he was due to be freed.
She has now received a letter of apology from the Parole Board’s “Head of Victims Team”, who said: “I understand that you were not informed of the hearing date, and I would like to apologise for this error. I fully acknowledge that to be informed of a release decision without the knowledge of a parole hearing may have caused you distress.” The Parole Board had investigated and “introduced measures to mitigate errors such as this happening”.
After reviewing the case, officials then found that Kate’s “Victim Personal Statement” which she had written in 2019, “had not been included in the dossier submitted to the Parole Board”. Kate was told: “Despite you having requested that your previous VPS be included in the current parole dossier, this did not happen. This error did not come to light until after the case had been considered which regrettably means that the Parole Board Panel did not consider your VPS as part of their review.”
The official “sincerely apologised” to Kate for the “profound impact such errors can have” and added: “Your VPS explains very poignantly the emotional and psychological impact that Sultan’s crimes has had on you, and it is deeply unfortunate that this error has occurred.” The Parole Board must now decide whether to accept the reconsideration application from the Justice Secretary. If accepted, there may be another hearing and, if not, Sultan will be freed on licence.
The Reconsideration Team told Kate: “The threshold for reconsideration is high and similar to that of a Judicial Review. The Parole Board considers cases carefully so it will be unusual for a decision to change.” If he does not get early release, Sultan will be automatically freed in February 2029, after his eight year jail sentence and a two year extension period. Kate said: “Having been dealing with the victim liaison service for 14 years, there are lots of issues. There is a high turnover of staff and some are very new to the job.”
Kate was raped in her YMCA flat in Telford days before her A-levels, first by Sultan’s cousin and then by Sultan. She said: “He used to say he would make my life hell and said I didn’t want to play games with him. He would say he would kick my door in and when I said, ‘You won’t because of the locks’, he said, ‘I will kick your head in then’.” She added: “It is scary, when you think of the number of convictions he has got. It puts him as a high risk offender. He is a serial rapist. He is a dangerous person.”
The Parole Board panel that heard Sultan’s bid for early release in December was told the 38-year old has “undertaken accredited programmes to address decision making and better ways of thinking, and to address sex offending.” It looked at the “release plan” prepared by Sultan’s probation officer and decided “this plan was robust enough to manage Mr Sultan in the community at this stage because he has completed all necessary work to address his offending, has reflected on his offending and has insight into his risk factors”. Under the release plan he has to live in “designated accommodation” and there are “strict limitations on Mr Sultan’s contacts, movements and activities”.
