A MAN aged 26 has been jailed for three years for repeatedly sexually molesting a vulnerable 15-year-old girl after driving her around at speed at dead of night.

Sajaad Khan was labelled callous and arrogant by the sentencing judge at Bradford Crown Court this afternoon.

Khan, of Nashville Terrace, Fell Lane, Keighley, was found guilty by the jury after a week-long trial of three offences of sexually assaulting the lost and isolated teenager in the early hours of October 22 last year.

Jubayel Ali, 26, of Catherine Street, Keighley, was cleared of both the allegations against him and discharged from the dock. He was unanimously acquitted by the jury of one count of sexual assault and one charge of false imprisonment.

Khan was also found not guilty of false imprisonment.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Ali had been ashamed of Khan’s behaviour that night and led along by him.

During the trial, the court heard that Khan plied the girl with vodka after picking her up in his car in the Keighley area at around midnight. She was cold, vulnerable and lost in a strange town after going to meet her boyfriend who had failed to turn up.

She had no phone with her and was driven “hither and thither” by Khan at high speed and sexually assaulted in secluded places in the back of his car.

Khan touched her naked breast and her upper thigh before making her touch him indecently. When she grabbed his phone to call her boyfriend, Khan drove her back to near where he had picked her up and threw her out of the car. Judge Durham Hall said Khan was a hard working man of previous good character who had fallen from grace.

“It was a night of madness and irresponsibility,” the judge said.

Khan’s defence, that the girl was “fine and happy and any sexual misconduct came from her,” was “ludicrous, absurd and arrogant.”

She drank the better part of a bottle of vodka and was two and a half times the drink drive limit when she was discovered screaming and crying in the street by the police. Judge Durham Hall said body cam footage worn by one of the officers revealed the state she was in.

“She was absolutely distraught. A more harrowing portrayal of a victim of a sustained sexual assault, I beg to suggest, is hard to imagine.”

Khan tried to pretend to the jury he was a knight in shining armour trying to protect and shelter the girl.

“She was 15. She was vulnerable. Your were 25. You were in charge,” the judge said.

“You were utterly callous in your actions against this particularly vulnerable, isolated, lost, 15-year-old child.”

The judge added: “This was an outrageous, but I hope isolated, departure from your good character.”

Khan must sign on the sex offender register for ten years.