Vile sex beast must remain behind bars

A PERVERT who was jailed for five years after subjecting a 12-year-old girl to a brutal sex attack has had his appeal rejected.

Khawaja Iqbal (42) drove the vulnerable schoolgirl to a remote country lane where he carried out the attack.

Iqbal, of Whinstone Way, Chadderton, was jailed for five years at Manchester Crown Court in July after he admitted the assault.

Iqbal’s counsel Mohammed Nawaz argued the sentence was “manifestly excessive” in light of his previously clean record and guilty plea.

But the Appeal Court judge, sitting with Lady Justice Sharp and Judge Clement Goldstone QC, said: “We do not find that the judge took too high a starting point. There is no merit in the appeal.”

Mr Justice Irwin said Iqbal picked up the 12-year-old girl in his car from a street in Tameside after promising to buy her some alcohol. Instead, he drove her to a “dark and secluded country lane”.

She refused to perform a sex act on him and ran out of the car, but was followed and accosted.

Mr Justice Irwin said: “This was as close to an attempted rape as could be.”

Iqbal dropped the girl back to the area where he had picked her up and she immediately told police.

Iqbal initially denied any wrongdoing, insisting he had innocently picked up the girl and that his DNA inadvertantly got onto her clothes from items in his car. He later pleaded guilty.