Sex attacker and bomb hoaxer appeals against sentence for attack

A CONVICTED paedophile who stabbed his younger brother's classmate as he headed home from a Sheffield college has failed to get his jail sentence cut.

Mohammed Ali, aged 31, of Exeter Place, Broomhall, Sheffield, along with his brother, Modu Miah, armed themselves with a knife and a screwdriver before driving out to track down Abbann Qayyum as he left Norton College in January last year.


On spotting him, Ali and 18-year-old Miah jumped from the car and launched a terrifying attack on Mr Qayyum, leaving him seriously injured in the street.

Using the screwdriver as his weapon, Miah stabbed Mr Qayyum in the upper right arm, while Ali used the 20cm knife to inflict wounds to his back, left shoulder, hand and cheek.

Doctors feared Mr Qayyum had sustained internal injuries from the wound in his back and he was kept in hospital overnight. Luckily, his injuries were external.


Miah had rowed previously with Mr Qayyum, and there was bad feeling between the two, London's Criminal Appeal Court heard.

Both Ali and Miah admitted unlawful wounding at Sheffield Crown Court in November last year and Ali was jailed for three years, while Miah was sent to a young offenders' institution for 18 months. Miah did not appeal against his sentence.

Ali had a number of previous convictions, the court heard, including offences of dishonesty, one for indecent assault and a further conviction for gross indecency with young boys. He had also been convicted of a bomb hoax.

He had, however, attempted to put his past behind him in recent times, the court heard.

He was working as a team leader at a food company at the time and had been out of trouble with the police for eight-and-a-half years. The attack on Mr Qayyum was the first violent offence he had committed.

Lord Justice Jackson, who heard the appeal with Mr Justice Gross and Judge Michael Baker QC, said the victim's injuries, although serious, were not "particularly grave".

But Ali was more than 10 years older than his "immature" brother and should have been trying to dissuade him from the attack, he said.

"This was after all a very serious assault, with the use of a knife, in which serious, albeit not particularly grave, injury was caused.

He concluded: "Having considered very carefully the points that have been very ably made on Ali's behalf, we have reached the conclusion this is not an application the court should entertain and it will therefore be refused."


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