Muktar Said Ibrahim has criminal convictions for indecent assault, robbery and attempted robbery, the trial jury was told yesterday.

Mr Ibrahim, 29, conceded during cross-examination that he had pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a girl in June 1993. The attack, in Edgware, northwest London, occurred when he lured the girl into an alley, held her against a wall and fondled her breasts.

“She was my age — I was 15 at the time,” Mr Ibrahim said. “I thought the girl liked me but I got the wrong signals.”

Mr Ibrahim, who came to Britain as a refugee from Eri-trea aged 13, was sentenced to a one-year supervision order. In April 1995 he and an accomplice followed a 77-year-old woman as she walked home from Southgate Underground station. She was knocked to the ground and had her handbag stolen. Mr Ibrahim pleaded not guilty but was convicted by a jury and sentenced to three years’ jail. Later he was given a two-year sentence for a robbery and attempted robbery.

Times Recommends

• Brown gambles it all on rescue plan
• Motherhood boosts female brain power
• That's no old FT, that's my naked wife