Teacher found guilty of abusing girl pupil (From York Press)

Teacher Jabir Ahmed Jolkipar found guilty of abusing girl pupil

9:00am Friday 4th February 2011 in News By Megi Rychlikova, megi.rychlikova@thepress.co.uk

A MUSLIM teacher is today facing jail for sexually abusing a girl while giving her religious instruction.

Jabir Ahmed Jolkipar, 28, tried to have his crimes dealt with inside the Muslim community in York, Peter Cleasby, prosecuting, told a jury.

But the girl’s father, concerned nothing was apparently being done, went to police and members of the community gave evidence against Jolkipar.

Recorder Guy Kearl QC adjourned sentence for a probation report and ordered Jolkipar, a Bangladeshi national, to surrender his passport.

“The likelihood is it will be a term of imprisonment,” he told the teacher, whom the judge said had “lost his former standing” in the community. Jolkipar’s barrister, Mark Bury, said he was no longer teaching children.

Jolkipar, who was bailed on condition he lives at Sylhet Close, Bradford, had denied three charges of sexual abuse, but was convicted by the jury after 70 minutes in retirement.

He claimed in the witness box he had not touched the girl sexually during the lessons he gave her for six months.

He admitted kissing her, but said he had done so on her nose, and not on her lips as she had told the jury. “I realised she was unhappy. If she was unhappy, she wouldn’t learn and that is why I did it,” he claimed.

He alleged a day or so after the kiss he heard things were being said about him and, on advice from a highly regarded member of the Muslim community, he went to London. He had not taught the girl since.

Speaking through a Bengali interpreter, the 28-year-old teacher said he qualified as a Moulana or religious teacher in his native Bangladesh.

He came to the UK in 2007, to teach and preach. Initially he was based in Rochdale, but within a short time he moved to York, where he taught 15 or 16 children privately in their family homes. He denied attempting to kiss the girl at an earlier lesson and claimed he had to correct her prayer position on every lesson.

Each 90-minute lesson included memorising a verse, reading from the Koran and prayer instruction.