Two Afghan nationals are standing trial at Inner London Crown Court accused of raping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old autistic girl on a busy commuter train from rural Kent to London in February 2026, an incident that has drawn attention to broader official statistics on sexual offending by foreign nationals in several European countries.
Baryalai Rahimi, 25, of Southall, and Mirebadurahman Sadat, 29, of Cricklewood, deny all charges. Prosecutors allege the men followed the runaway teenager onto a Southeastern service after spotting her at a station.
The girl told police that Rahimi kissed and assaulted her in the carriage while other passengers looked at their phones, then took her to a toilet where further assaults, including rape, are alleged to have occurred; Sadat is also accused of sexual assaults.
She reported feeling unable to refuse due to fear and her autism. CCTV was shown in court. Both men deny the counts of rape, sexual assault, assault by penetration, and sexual activity with a child. The trial continues.
The case occurs against a backdrop of Ministry of Justice data for England and Wales showing foreign nationals accounting for roughly 14% of sexual offence convictions in recent years while comprising about 11% of the population.
Analyses of those figures, including by The Economist and The Telegraph, indicate Afghans have conviction rates for sex crimes several times higher than British-born people after age and sex standardization (estimates range from approximately three times to seven times higher depending on population data used).
Groups from Middle Eastern and North African countries also show elevated rates relative to population share. Absolute numbers remain limited, and most people from these backgrounds are not convicted of such offences.
A 2026 peer-reviewed study from Lund University in Sweden examined more than 4,000 rape-related convictions against adult women between 2000 and 2020. It found that individuals with an immigrant background made up about 63% of those convicted versus roughly 30% of matched controls.
Elevated odds remained after adjustments for socioeconomic status, psychiatric and substance-use disorders, and prior criminal behaviour, and were strongest among those born outside Sweden who arrived at age 15 or older. German police statistics have similarly recorded higher shares of non-German suspects in sexual offence cases, including group assaults, relative to their share of the population, with origins from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq frequently noted in the data.
In the United Kingdom, the 2014 Jay Report on Rotherham documented an estimated 1,400 victims of group-based child sexual exploitation between 1997 and 2013, with the majority of identified perpetrators described as British men of Pakistani heritage. Later local reviews and the 2025 Casey national audit have noted disproportionate representation of Asian suspects in group-based child sexual exploitation in certain police force areas, while emphasising that national ethnicity recording remains incomplete and that overall group-based offending includes substantial numbers of white suspects.
Similar patterns of overrepresentation from particular migrant cohorts appear in other European datasets, though researchers caution that young male age structure among recent arrivals, socioeconomic factors, and variations in reporting can influence observed rates.
The trial of Rahimi and Sadat is expected to continue with further evidence and cross-examination. European governments have faced ongoing debate over screening, integration measures, post-conviction deportation, and improved collection of nationality and ethnicity data in sexual offence statistics.