Shop security guard jailed for sex assault on teen girl

A security guard who sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl after she shoplifted a face mask and make-up brush from Penney’s has been jailed for five years.

Abdul Rahman Mohammed, 35, from Mountjoy Square in Dublin, was found guilty of sexual assault, false imprisonment and demanding money with menaces a year and a half ago at Dundrum Shopping Centre.

The child said the incident left her afraid and depressed.

The 15-year-old girl was out shopping with her friends in Penney’s in the Dundrum Shopping Centre on 4 December 2022, Detective Garda Rachel Kiernan told the court.

The girl put a make-up brush and peel-off face mask in her jacket but was stopped as she was leaving and brought to a room where she was left alone with Abdul Rahman Mohammed.

He told the girl to tell her friends to leave or they would be in trouble too before accusing her of hiding more goods, making her strip to her underwear and put his hands on her.

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 shopping centre car park and she thought she had to pay €2.50 for the face mask and brush but he wanted €250.

She called her friends, but they did not have the money. One of them went to Penney’s where she was told that people caught shoplifting did not have to pay security.

Mohammed denied the charges but was convicted by a jury last February.

He tried to claim the girl and her friends had been following him around.

The CCTV footage in the room where the sexual assault took place had been interfered with and was blurry.

In a victim impact statement the child said she could not close her eyes without seeing his face and the attack left her depressed and afraid.

Judge Orla Crowe sentenced the 35-year-old security guard to five years in prison.