Man jailed for sending girl rape threat online

A man who threatened to rape a teenage girl and encouraged her to self-harm has been jailed.

Shabaz Khokar, 24, from London, sent the threat to the victim in Staffordshire via social media, along with images of train tickets he booked to travel to her home. He was arrested at a railway station in the county in August when police were alerted.

After being released on conditional bail, he sent further messages to the victim urging her to self-harm and drop the case against him. He was arrested again and later charged.

Khokar, of Eastney Street, Greenwich, was jailed for two years and five months at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday after admitting several offences.

They included sending communication threatening death or serious harm; encouraging or assisting serious self-harm by another; and committing an act with intent to pervert the course of justice.

As part of his sentence, Khokar was also served with an indefinite restraining order against the victim.

Staffordshire Police said the case marked the first sentencing for the force under section 184 of the Online Safety Act 2023.

The legislation introduced a number of new offences, which came into effect in January 2024 and included:

• Encouraging or assisting serious self-harm
• Cyberflashing
• Sending false information intended to cause non-trivial harm
• Threatening communications
• Intimate image abuse
• Epilepsy trolling

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