KWBirmingham Crown Court heard today that Abdul Elahi will be sentenced to 32 years imprisonment of consequence to his unspeakable crimes committed against around 2000 women and children around the world.
We are very pleased with the outcome of today’s sentencing of this offender. The crimes he committed against these women and children were abhorrent, cruel and damaging, and we are glad that this has been recognised by Birmingham Crown Court. The impact of this form of blackmail and the subsequent disclosure of private sexual images can leave a significant effect on victims for a lifetime and we hope the victims of his crimes feel some justice for the pain, distress and harm caused to them.
We hope today’s sentencing puts a message out to the public that online crimes will cause a significant impact to their victims and the justice system recognises this as criminal behaviour. Whilst this abuse was not physical or in-person, every woman and child targeted by this offender has suffered immensely at the hands of his abusive behaviour.
The role the Helpline has played within this case has been to work on the cases where private sexual content was uploaded and shared online without the consent of his victims. This case quickly became the largest and most extreme the Helpline have worked on since establishing in 2015. At this point, we have worked on the content removal for nearly 18 months and have removed nearly 140,000 images and videos that were found online. The work of the Helpline will continue for the foreseeable future and we will work tirelessly to support all victims impacted by the offender’s crimes.
We urge anyone who believes they have been a victim of this offender, and have had their content shared online without consent, to come forward to the Helpline. The Revenge Porn Helpline can support adults (those who are 18+ in the content) with the removal of this content online. Victims can contact the RPH on help@revengepornhelpline.org.uk and quote ‘Operation Makedom’ in the subject line.
The Internet Watch Foundation can provide support with the removal of content online for victims who are under 18 in content distributed of them.
