Abdulmanon Aliev, 50, is facing years in jail (Image: PA)
A “despicable” Eastern European refugee who put a schoolgirl runaway through a vile assault on a train is facing years in jail. Abdulmanon Aliev, 50, from Tajikistan, took his shorts and pants off before attacking the 13-year-old on a train between Southend, Essex, and Fenchurch Street Stations on June 16 last year.
He touched her chest, put his hand under her tights to penetrate her, then tried to orally rape her, Inner London Crown Court heard. Aliev, aided by a Tajik interpreter, denied assaulting the girl and claimed he only touched himself in front of her because he has a skin condition.
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He wept as he told jurors: “I have a wife and six daughters. I swear to God I have never done this. I can’t even listen to this. She looks like my daughter. I don’t know where these allegations come from.”
Aliev denied but was convicted of three counts of sexual assault, two of assault by penetration and one of attempted rape by the jury.
Judge Matthew Boyle remanded Aliev in custody ahead of sentence on 17 June.
In her video interview played to the jury the teenager struggled to speak as she explained that she had got on the train after an argument with her mother.
“I got a ticket. It was random. I just randomly chose it,” she said.
When asked for a description of the man she has accused of attacking her she said: “He was about my height. He had a black bag. He couldn’t speak English.”
Asked if she knew what language he spoke she said: “It looked Russian, but he didn’t look Russian.”
When asked what she meant, she said: “It was like the writing. He said something on the translator.”
She said Aliev he sat opposite her.
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“He was touching himself and he started staring at me”, she said.
“He moved, he went next to me. He came and sat next to me.”
“I was wearing school uniform. He was touching my tights. He was touching me through my clothes.”
She said that he touched her chest.
The girl said that at one point he moved carriages but he then came back.
“He moved carriages but came back. He was like ‘Come with me.'”
She said that she went with him because she was scared and she could not get off the train.
She said that at one point another passenger tried to intervene.
“He said: ‘What are you doing, that’s a child’.”
The teenager said that he then started touching her again.
“He started putting his hand in the same area.”
At one point she struggled to speak so she was asked to write down what she wanted to say.
She said: “He took his shorts and pants off…He was unbuttoning his shorts..”
Aliev then pushed her head down and tried to orally rape her.
British Transport Police detectives launched an urgent investigation to identify Aliev, trawling hours of CCTV footage to track his movements before and after the attack.
The manhunt ended on 27 June when plain clothes officers spotted him near his home in Peckham, southeast London, and arreste him. officers then searched his home to find the clothes he was wearing on the day of the attack.
Aliev, of Rye Lane, Peckham, southeast London, denied but was convicted of three counts of sexual assault, two counts of assault by penetration and one count of attempted rape.
BTP Detective Constable Elizabeth Cahill said: “Aliev singled out a vulnerable child and subjected her to one of the most abhorrent sexual assaults I’ve ever investigated.
“While the focus of attention will rightly be on him as the despicable sexual predator that he is, I want to pay tribute to the brave victim who reported him to police.
“This verdict would not have been possible without her account of what happened and her willingness to support our investigation.
“We take every sexual offence report extremely seriously, and we’ll stop at nothing to put offenders like Aliev before the courts.”
