Migrant hotel resident jailed for sexual assaults

A migrant hotel resident who sexually assaulted two different women on trains eight days apart has been jailed for 10 months.

Mohammed Mirzai, 24, who admitted touching both women on their upper thighs during the journeys, was told by a sheriff he was a "high-risk sexual offender".

Falkirk Sheriff Court was told the women were both passengers on Scotrail's 21:45 service from Glasgow to Edinburgh.

Mirzai, an Afghan asylum seeker who was living the Radisson Blu hotel in Perth, was also placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.

Last week, Mirzai was sentenced to a separate 30-week jail term for crawling along the floor at Perth Leisure Pool to look up at a naked swimmer in a locked cubicle while on bail for the train offences.

Sheriff Maryam Labaki told Mirzai: "On two separate occasions, you sexually assaulted two woman who were travelling alone on a train.

"While on a train, they should have felt safe, and been safe.

"I am satisfied there is no alternative to a custodial sentence."

Prosecutor Bernadette Cuthbertson said the first incident occurred on 14 March, 2025.

Mirzai's first victim, a 42-year-old woman, got on the train at Glasgow before he boarded a few stops later.

The court heard he sat next to the woman and asked her if she had a phone charger.

The woman said she did not have one, but then felt movement on her lap, and when she moved her coat, saw Mirzai had his hand on her upper thigh.

The woman jumped up and said loudly: "Why are you touching me?".

Mirzai said he was not touching her, and she repeated, "Yes, you were touching me."

The court was told other passengers saw what was happening and one took a photo of Mirzai.

The woman and another witness contacted British Transport Police at the next stop, and the photo was passed to the police and later circulated.

Eight days later Mirzai targeted his second victim, a 31-year-old woman, in an almost-identical attack on the same train service.

The woman got off the train at Polmont and did not report the incident at the time, but came forward after seeing Mirzai's photo being circulated by police.

He was identified from the picture and traced at Perth's Radisson Blu hotel, also known as the Station Hotel, which was being used to house asylum seekers.

The court heard Mirzai was an Afghan asylum seeker, subject to oversight by the Home Office.

Solicitor Gordon Addison, defending, asked the court to take into account his client's "apparent immaturity".