A Watford sex predator was bravely confronted by two victims in court yesterday (Wednesday, March 4) before being jailed for 18 years his offences against three young children going back more than 30 years.
Maqsood Asif, of Queen Mary’s Avenue, Watford was found guilty at St Albans Crown Court of one charge of rape, seven counts of indecent assault, indecency with a male person and indecency with a child.
The court was told the charges involved three youngsters, a boy and two young girls, who were aged between four and 13 when the offences were happening.
Two of his victims, who are now middle aged, were allowed to speak directly to him from the witness box about the trauma they had suffered because of what he did to them in Watford in the 1980s.
His male victim, who was just four years old when the offences against him began, said: “At the time I was too young to know what was right and what was wrong.”
A female victim of Asif told him: “You sentenced me to a lifetime of trauma. Today, thanks to the jury, justice has been done.”
His third victim was not in court.
Asif, who is now 58 and a married man, carried out the offences on the children when he was aged between 19 and 33 at locations around Watford.
Prosecutor Wayne Cleaver said: “Each of these three are now adults but the experience of what happened to them remained with them over the years and recently they have come forward to the authorities.
“In the summer of 2018 events of the past began to unravel and these complainants came forward and made complaints to the police.”
He said the first of the victims to tell her story to the police was a woman, now in her late 30s, who outlined how on many occasions when she was aged between eight and 13, the defendant had intimately touched her.
She also told the officers how on one occasion she had been raped by Asif.
Following the woman’s account to the police, two other victims of Asif were interviewed by Herts Police.
The male victim, who is now in his early 40s, told the police the defendant had intimately fondled him when he was a young boy.
A second woman also in her 40s came forward to tell the police that as a youngster, she had been subjected to indecent assaults by Asif and he had exposed himself to her and forced her to perform a sex act on him.
The jury heard that when arrested, the defendant denied he had committed the offences.
Passing sentence today, Recorder David Osborn told Asif: “You sought sexual gratification by abusing children of tender years.”
Asif will have to serve 12 years of his sentence before he can be considered for parole.
He was made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and his name will go on the Sex Offenders Register.
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