Digital deviant jailed: Man urged self-harm and threatened rape

A London man’s online campaign of coercion, intimidation and explicit threats towards a Staffordshire teen escalated into a criminal prosecution testing the UK’s new powers against extreme digital abuse.

A man who threatened to rape a teenage girl from Staffordshire and repeatedly encouraged her to self-harm has been jailed in what police have described as a landmark prosecution under new online safety laws. Shabaz Khokar, aged 24, of Greenwich, south-east London, was sentenced to two years and five months’ imprisonment at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday after admitting offences of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm and sending communications threatening serious harm.

The court heard that in August 2024 Khokar began communicating online with a teenage girl living in Staffordshire. During those exchanges, he threatened to rape her and sent messages encouraging her to harm herself, conduct which prosecutors said met the statutory threshold for the newly created offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm.

Officers from Staffordshire Police became involved after the nature of the messages was reported and traced Khokar’s communications to his London address. Investigators established that he had booked a train ticket to Staffordshire and had sent the victim screenshots of the booking as part of the threats.

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When Khokar arrived at Stafford railway station, police were waiting and arrested him. He answered no comment during police interview and was later released on bail subject to strict conditions, including a prohibition on entering Staffordshire and any form of contact with the victim.

Despite those restrictions, officers later discovered that Khokar had continued to send messages to the girl. The court was told that these further communications included renewed encouragement to self-harm and attempts to pressure her into withdrawing support for the prosecution. He was re-arrested and charged with additional offences, which were taken into account at sentence.

In addition to the custodial term, the court imposed an indefinite restraining order preventing Khokar from contacting the victim directly or indirectly.

A police spokesperson said the case marked the first sentencing in Staffordshire under section 184 of the Online Safety Act 2023, which introduced a series of new criminal offences aimed at tackling serious online abuse. Those provisions came into force on 31 January 2024 and include offences of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm, sending false information intended to cause non-trivial harm, threatening communications, cyberflashing, intimate image abuse and so-called epilepsy trolling.