Girl, 12, tells court she was strangled and then raped

A 12-year-old girl alleged to have been strangled by one man and raped by another has told a court she thought she was "going to die" because she could not breathe.

The prosecution told the trial at Warwick Crown Court that Mohammad Kabir tried to strangle the girl as he attempted to abduct her in Nuneaton in July, before Ahmad Mulakhil sexually assaulted her a few hours later.

"After he strangled me I ran off," the girl said in video evidence shown to jurors.

Mulakhil, 23, has previously pleaded guilty to one charge of raping a child under the age of 13, but denies two further counts, as well as other charges. Fellow Afghan national Kabir, 24 denies all charges, including attempted abduction.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Daniel Oscroft said the two men appeared to be friends and had targeted the 12-year-old in a park after she played on swings in the early evening of 22 July 2025.

"Mohammad Kabir did so by trying to get her to come with him - which is the attempted abduction of a child - and also grabbing her by the neck, strangling her," he said.

"This is a legal definition, it doesn't necessarily mean he choked her."

In her interview, the girl, who cannot be named, said: "They kept looking. They were both foreign - they had like a translate [app] on their phone.

"I would speak on there so he could understand it."

Asked how the incident in which she was allegedly strangled had left her feeling, the girl said: "Like I was going to die because I couldn't breathe."

At one point, the girl said she was sitting down and one of the men said he liked her and "was being weird".

Kabir was with Mulakhil at the time of the initial approach, the court heard.

"The prosecution suggests that Mohammad Kabir, when he tried to take her away, can only have had some sexual purpose. What alternative could there have been?" Oscroft told the jury.

"While she didn't go with Mr Kabir, the other person there, Ahmad Mulakhil, remained in the area for the next few hours, and later met her.

"He talked to her and led her away to a secluded cul-de-sac, Cheverel Place, where he raped her, sexually assaulted her and took indecent images of her."

During the alleged sex attacks, the girl said, she had told her attacker to stop.

Asked by police what he was saying, the girl responded: "Nothing. He was just laughing.

"I was saying get off me. He didn't say anything, he just carried on."

The prosecution said Mulakhil had "repeatedly insisted" the girl went with him voluntarily, adding he believed she looked like she was aged in her 20s.

But it would have been "obvious to anyone that she was a very young, vulnerable child," Oscroft said.

The court heard Kabir is alleged to have strangled the girl, who had been playing in a park, at about 18:00 BST.

She was then seen talking to Mulakhil at about 20:00, when she is said to have claimed to be aged 19.

Oscroft told jurors the girl's claim was "such an obvious lie" that it was clear from Mulakhil's reaction that he did not believe her.

Mulakhil was also in contact with Kabir, the prosecution added, and their discussions appeared to be about their alleged victim.

The court heard she was "forced" to engage in sexual acts, and had disclosed on the same night as the attack that she had also been "smacked and pulled".

Mulakhil's phone was seized after his arrest, jurors were told, and indecent images and images of the two defendants together were found, confirming they were well known to each other.

Oscroft said investigators also found Mulakhil's DNA on the girl's neck and on the inside of her clothing.

Mulakhil, denies child abduction, two counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault and taking indecent photographs of a child.

Kabir, also of no fixed address, denies intentional strangulation, committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence and attempted abduction.

Additional reporting by PA Media

Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.