A Penneys security guard has been jailed for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl after she shoplifted

A security guard who sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl after she stole a face mask and makeup brush from Penney’s has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Abdul Rahman Mohammed (35), of Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1, was found guilty of sexual assault, false imprisonment and demanding money by threat at Penneys in Dundrum Shopping Center on December 4, 2022.

Mohammed was convicted by a jury on all three counts following a trial at Dublin District Criminal Court in February this year.

Detective Garda Rachel Kiernan told the court that Mohammed was a security guard at Penneys at the time of the crime.

The then 15-year-old victim went shopping with two friends.

The group went to Penneys and the girl put a makeup brush and a peel-off face mask in her jacket. As she was leaving, a security guard who was not Mohammed approached her.

He asked her to come back to the store and tell them what else she had picked up.

She was taken to a room on the premises. At some point she was left alone in the room with Mohammed.

Mohammed said to the girl: “Tell your friends to leave because if they are here they will also get into trouble.”

Mohammed accused the girl of hiding other items she had taken and asked her to take off her clothes. He had her strip down to her underwear and rubbed his hand on her thigh before making her turn around.

The girl asked if she could dress again and Mohammed said yes. He asked her if she would pay and she said she would, so he told her to wait for him outside Penney’s.

They met in the mall parking lot and she agreed to send him money via Revolut. The girl thought she had to pay him €2.50 for the face mask and brush, but he told her it was actually €250.

The girl called her friends, but they didn’t have the money to pay Mohammed. At one point, a friend of the girl went to Penneys where she was told that people caught shoplifting didn’t have to pay bail.

When the case came to court, Mohammed denied the offense and claimed his victim and her two friends were following him around the mall at the time.

The trial also addressed the prosecution’s case that Mohammed had jammed the surveillance camera in the room where he sexually assaulted the girl a week earlier, causing the footage to become blurry.

In a victim impact statement submitted to the court, the girl said the incident had left her feeling anxious and depressed.

“I didn’t want to go out on the street because I wouldn’t run into him,” she said, adding that she couldn’t close her eyes without seeing his face.

John Peart SC, defending, said “until now he has been the perfect citizen” and that the incident was “outside his normal character”.

He said that while sexual assaults are always serious, this incident falls on the lower level of criminal offenses.

He said his client is well respected in his community and has volunteered at a food kitchen in the past.

Mr Peart also said his client was a foreign national and therefore his time in prison was “more stressful” for him than for a normal Irish citizen.

Mohammed has two previous convictions for traffic offences.

On Monday, Judge Orla Crowe imposed a prison sentence of five years. She dated it back to February, when Mohammed was taken into custody.

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour rape crisis hotline on 1800-77 8888, access the text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or Rape visit Crisis ErLP.