A Sudanese migrant who sexually assaulted a five-year-old girl after snatching her from the street has been jailed for 11 years.
Mohammed Abdulraziq, 32, held his victim in his bedsit until the girl’s mother, who was desperately searching for her, heard her crying and she was rescued by two men who forced their way into the ground floor room.
He was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court after being found guilty at a trial last September of false imprisonment with intent to commit a sexual offence, sexual assault and assault.
Sentencing Abdulraziq, Judge Kerry Malin said she was satisfied he posed a risk of serious harm to others, particularly young children.
She added that in an impact statement, the victim’s mother spoke of the "trauma" they had both suffered and that the "cries of distress and helplessness of her daughter would haunt her for ever".
The victim had gone from a "happy and confident little girl to one with complex behavioural needs", the judge said.
The court heard on the afternoon of March 30 last year, the girl was playing in the street in Winson Green, Birmingham, while her mother was talking to a friend who lived on the road.
When the child disappeared from view, her mother and a friend began a frantic search for her, going to a park and then a corner shop.
On returning to the street, the mother recognised the sound of her daughter crying and identified the building it was coming from.
The front door to the property was locked, so she picked up a piece of wood and tried to smash the window of the room where her daughter was being held.
The mother’s friend then partially climbed through the window and saw Abdulraziq and the girl, whose cycling shorts were down by her ankles while the defendant was also in a state of undress.
Abdulraziq then swung a punch at the woman and shut the window, causing her to fall back to the street. But two men who heard the commotion managed to force the defendant’s door open.
Abdulraziq had drunk three cans of beer and had smoked two cigarettes of Mamba, a synthetic cannabis drug, on the day of the incident.
Judge Malin told him: "The victim was a five-year-old little girl happily playing in the street.
"While you cannot be seen on the footage, I am sure you encouraged the girl to enter your home and took her to your bedsitting room, and the door was locked.
"It is perhaps fortunate that your room overlooked the street. The mother and her friend, within a few seconds, realised that the girl was no longer visible from the road and they launched a frantic search for her.
"It must have been a horrific experience to bang on the door and window and see her daughter inside.
"She even got a scaffolding board to break the window and get to her daughter. Still, you did not let the girl leave the room."
The judge added that when the neighbour clambered on to the window sill "she could clearly see that you were bent over towards the victim near to the bed and your lower clothes were around your ankles as were hers".