11th Jul 2025
A paedophile who tried to meet a 13-year-old girl in Leeds has been spared custody, after a court heard about his sheltered upbringing in Iran.
Leeds Crown Court was told that Ahmed Hasanpour had been a sheep herder before coming to the UK and being granted asylum.
The predatory 23-year-old contacted the profile on Facebook, demanded naked pictures, sent her a picture of his own penis and arranged to meet her after travelling from his home in Manchester.
But the girl was a decoy profile run by an online paedophile hunter group, looking to catch out perverts. They confronted him when he arrived in Leeds before calling the police.
Hasanpour later admitted attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act, attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming and two counts of making indecent images.
Prosecutor Emily Thorbjornsen said that Hasanpour made contact with the profile over Facebook on February 5 last year. Within a few messages, she told him she was just 13.
He apologised but continued to message, calling her “very pretty”, and asked for photos, including one of her in her school uniform.
When one was sent, he called her “sexy and attractive”. He asked if she had experienced sex before then pestered her for naked photos, despite her repeated refusals.
He became angry and accused her of not trusting him. He also asked her to delete their chat to prevent her parents finding out.
However, her refusals to send photos failed to deter Hasanpour, who continued to make sexual comments and talked of the sexual acts he wanted to do with the girl.
On February 18 he travelled to Leeds and was met by the hunter group, then was arrested.
In his police interview he claimed he thought she was 16. His phone was checked and found to have child-abuse images in Category A and Category B. They included children as young as four being abused in the most horrific way.
The court heard that Hasanpour, now of Two Ball Lonnen, Fenham, Newcastle upon Tyne, has no previous convictions. He now works in property maintenance.
Mitigating, Chloe Hudson said he had entered early guilty pleas and that he had come from an “entirely different culture” that had a different attitude to females.
He had travelled from Iran when he was 19, entering the UK as an illegal immigrant. He was allegedly in danger in his home country due to political issues.
He was later granted leave to remain in the UK, but was mixing with people who saw sexual relations with under 16s as normal.
Judge Richard Mansell KC said that Hasanpour “clearly believed” the girl was just 13 and used emotional blackmail to force her to send naked snaps.
He said of his background: “You were clearly very immature when it comes to sexual relations, the age of consent and the appropriate boundaries.
“Your upbringing has had a huge impact on your understanding, or lack of understanding.”
However, he acknowledged that Hasanpour now realised sexual relations with a 13-year-old was now “totally wrong”.
He gave him a two-year jail sentence, suspended for two years.
He ordered him to complete the Building Choices 26-session awareness programme, 15 rehabilitation days, gave him a 10-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) and put him on the sex offender register for 10 years.