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Abdul Rahman Mohammed: security authority used to assault a child

A 15-year-old girl was stopped over a face mask and make-up brush worth €2.50. The Penneys security guard isolated her, made her strip to her underwear, sexually assaulted her and then demanded €250. A jury convicted him of three offences and a judge imposed five years.

Published 28 July 2026 · Remigration Ireland case ledger
15 years oldChild victim
3 convictionsJury verdicts
€2.50 to €250Goods and demand
5 yearsPrison sentence

Abdul Rahman Mohammed was entrusted with security work inside one of Ireland's busiest shopping centres. He used that position to isolate a child who had been stopped for shoplifting, remove her friends from the situation, order her to strip and sexually assault her. He then moved the encounter outside the store and demanded 100 times the value of the goods.

This is not an unresolved allegation. On 12 February 2024, a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury found Mohammed guilty of sexual assault, false imprisonment and demanding money with menace. Judge Orla Crowe later sentenced him to five years' imprisonment.

A child stopped over €2.50 of cosmetics

On 4 December 2022, the 15-year-old girl was shopping with two friends at Penneys in Dundrum Town Centre. She put a make-up brush and peel-off face mask into her jacket. The total value later reported was €2.50.

A security guard other than Mohammed stopped her as she attempted to leave and brought her back into the store. She was taken to a room and, at one point, left alone with Mohammed.

The girl's shoplifting was wrongdoing. It did not surrender her bodily autonomy, erase safeguarding obligations or give a security employee the right to invent punishments. The criminal convictions concern what Mohammed did after the child was placed in his power.

Isolation, forced stripping and sexual assault

Mohammed told the girl to send her friends away, warning that they would be in trouble if they stayed. He accused her of concealing additional goods and instructed her to remove her clothes.

He made the child strip to her underwear, rubbed his hand along her thigh and made her turn around. She asked if she could dress again. Mohammed eventually allowed her to put her clothes back on.

The sequence mattered: an adult security guard separated a 15-year-old from her peers, invoked supposed authority over hidden goods and used that claimed authority to make her undress. The jury's verdict established sexual assault and false imprisonment beyond reasonable doubt.

From a €2.50 shoplifting incident to a €250 demand

Mohammed then asked whether the girl would pay and told her to wait for him outside Penneys. They met in the shopping-centre car park. The girl believed she was expected to pay €2.50 for the face mask and brush. Mohammed demanded €250 and proposed payment by Revolut.

The girl contacted her friends, who did not have the money. One friend returned to Penneys and was told that people caught shoplifting did not have to pay a security guard. The jury convicted Mohammed of demanding money with menace as well as the offences inside the room.

What can accurately be said about the CCTV

RTÉ's sentencing report states that footage from the room had been interfered with and was blurry. The detailed Irish Times account describes the prosecution case more specifically: prosecutors alleged Mohammed had interfered with the room's CCTV camera one week earlier to make the footage blurry.

Mohammed was not separately reported as charged with or convicted of CCTV interference. This case file therefore records the interference as evidence advanced by the prosecution, not as a fourth conviction and not as proof of any other uncharged incident.

That distinction does not dilute the three verdicts the jury did return. It prevents a concerning piece of trial evidence from being converted into a legal finding the published record does not establish.

Denial rejected and five years imposed

Mohammed denied the offences at trial. He alleged that the girl and her two friends had been following him around Dundrum Town Centre. The jury rejected that account and convicted him on all three counts in February 2024.

In her victim-impact statement, the girl said the incident left her afraid and depressed. She did not want to go outside in case she encountered Mohammed and said she could not close her eyes without seeing his face.

On 13 May 2024, Judge Orla Crowe imposed a five-year prison sentence. The sentence was backdated to February, when Mohammed entered custody. The court heard that he had two previous convictions, both for road-traffic offences.

Case chronology

A five-year prison-space illustration

The Irish Prison Service reported an average annual cost of €99,072 for an available, staffed prison space in 2024, excluding capital expenditure. Applying that system-wide benchmark to the five-year sentence produces an illustration of €495,360.

This is not a Mohammed-specific invoice and does not mean exactly that sum will be spent. The sentence was backdated to February 2024, while remission, temporary release and other sentence-administration decisions may affect time actually served. The calculation also assumes the 2024 average for each year.

The figure excludes Garda investigation, prosecution, court time, criminal legal aid, regulation of the security sector and victim support. Public sources reviewed do not supply reliable case-level totals for those services.

Foreign-national status: the limit of the evidence

At sentencing, defence counsel expressly asked the court to consider that Mohammed was a foreign national and said imprisonment in Ireland would be more onerous for him. The reputable reports reviewed do not identify his country of citizenship or birth, his date of arrival, his residence permission or any asylum or deportation history.

His name is not evidence of nationality or immigration status. This report therefore records only what the court report establishes: he was described as a foreign national. It does not assign him a country or invent an enforcement outcome.

No appeal outcome was located in the published sources reviewed through 28 July 2026. That is not proof that no application was ever filed; it means the known public record used here remains the jury convictions and five-year sentence.

What this case warns about

The strongest warning is institutional as much as individual. A uniform and a staff-only room gave Mohammed immediate power over a frightened child. He used that access to isolate her, make her undress, touch her and then pursue money outside the store.

The three convictions preserve the full shape of the conduct: the sexual violation, the confinement that enabled it and the menacing financial demand that followed. Each category matters. Reducing the case to shoplifting or even to sexual assault alone would erase how workplace authority was turned into a tool of coercion.

Sources