Here are the names and faces of the men judges sentenced to prison time in September 2025.
Mosque leader sexually assaulted children
Qari Sher Mohammad(Image: Kent Police)
Qari Sher Mohammad, 61, of Woodford Road in Forest Gate, sexually assaulted four children.
The imam targeted the kids over almost a decade until his victims raised the alarm.
Mohammad was first reported to police in 2018 when one girl revealed he had touched her while he carried out his duties at a mosque in Chatham, Kent, between March 2014 and October 2016.
He was arrested and interviewed in April that year, but he was not charged due to concerns about the potential impact a trial would have on the young victim.
Between May 2022 and December 2023, Mohammad sexually assaulted three further children and he was arrested on December 11 that year.
Police also returned to the initial victim, who was by then an adult, and she said she wished to support a police prosecution.
He was charged with multiple counts of sexual touching of a child.
Mohammad denied the offences but he was convicted at Canterbury Crown Court on 16 indictments.
He has now been jailed for 10 years.
Read the full story – Mosque leader from Newham sexually touched four children
Gang stole dozens of cars
Four men jailed for car theft – top: Mohammed Ahmed, Kabir Ahmed, bottom – Paul Barringer and Muhammed Ali(Image: Met Police)
Three men from east London were jailed for stealing dozens of vehicles, alongside a man from Southend.
An investigation was launched in July 2024 when detectives looked into 73 car thefts and one van theft across London.
The group largely targeted Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, and Toyota vehicles using an electronic device known as a “key emulator” which can open a vehicle and start its engine without a physical key.
It is believed some cars may have been shipped overseas, while others were sold on with cloned number plates.
The total value of the stolen vehicles is thought to have been between £1.1 and £1.7 million.
The gang were all arrested and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal motor vehicles and conspiracy to conceal criminal property.
Kabir Ahmed, 35, of High Street in Hornchurch, was jailed for four years and eight months.
Mohammed Gulzar Ahmed, 30 of Bow Road in Tower Hamlets, was jailed for five years.
Muhammed Imran Ali, 34, of Atherton Road in Forest Gate, was jailed for five years and 10 months.
Paul Barringer, 33, of Westminster Drive in Southend-on-Sea, was jailed for two years and six months.
Read the full story – East London men jailed after over 70 cars stolen
Barkingside teacher sexually assaulted girls
Syed Shahreear Ahmed(Image: Kent Police)
Syed Shahreear Ahmed, 37, of Mossford Lane in Barkingside, pretended to be a teenage boy to pursue young girls online.
The teacher has now been jailed for 15 years.
Ahmed groomed six girls online aged between 13 and 15 during 2019 to 2023.
He created and sent indecent images to the girls.
Ahmed would then initiate a face-to-face meeting where he would seriously sexually assault the victims.
Police were first aware of this in May 2023 after a 15-year-old girl reported to Kent Police that she was approached by Ahmed via social media App Wizz, on March 19 that year.
On May 2, a 14-year-old girl also met with Ahmed after speaking with him online.
He tried to sexually assault her in his car, touching her thigh before she jumped out of the moving car to safety.
Along with reports of the two girls, a further four were identified and approached directly by police.
Ahmed was found guilty of three counts of rape of a child, three counts of sexual assault, one count of attempted sexual assault, two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and five counts of meeting a child for sexual grooming.
He had already pleaded guilty to one count of taking an indecent image of a child and three counts of making indecent images of children.
Read the full story – Barkingside teacher jailed after sexually assaulting girls
Smirking man downloaded child abuse images
Jack Weller(Image: Essex Police)
Jack Weller, 32, of Doddinghurst Road in Brentwood, downloaded indecent images of children.
He was then pictured smirking in his police mugshot after his arrest.
Weller was given a 10 year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) in October 2024 after being convicted of an offence relating to indecent images of children.
But less than a year later he was arrested and taken into custody for questioning.
He was further arrested for breaching his SHPO by deleting images.
A full review was carried out and found nine category A images and four category B images on his device.
He was subsequently charged and pleaded guilty.
He was jailed for two years and two months and has been placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.
Read the full story – Brentwood Jack Weller jailed for downloading child porn
Drug smugglers
Left – Paul Tozer, Top – Stephen Persaud, Bottom – Kane Ward(Image: NCA)
Three men from east London are among those to have been jailed for their roles in an organised crime group.
Ten men were sentenced after encrypted chats led to the discovery of their criminal operations – importing cannabis and plotting to smuggle cocaine on a yacht under the guise of a sailing race.
In March 2022, Border Force officers searched a machine lathe at Tilbury Port and discovered 408 kilos of the drug, which had been smuggled from South Africa.
Paul Tozer, 61, of Kings Wood Park in Epping, owned the textile business which was to be the delivery address intended for the consignment.
The importation was organised in part by Kane Ward, 60, of Boyd Close in Upminster.
In July 2023, 268 kilos of cannabis was discovered by Border Force officers in Southampton in a consignment of tool boxes that had been imported from Vancouver.
The importation was assisted by Stephen Persaud, 41, of Church Road in Upminster, a freight forwarder whose company managed loads into various ports.
Ward was jailed for six years and six months for conspiring to fraudulently evade a prohibition on the importation of a Class B drug.
Persaud was jailed for 32 months for participating in an organised crime group.
Tozer was jailed for six years after he admitted two counts of conspiring to fraudulently evade a prohibition on the importation of a Class B drug.
Read the full story – Upminster and Epping men jailed for organised drug crimes