An asylum seeker caught messaging what he believed to be a 14-year-old girl has avoided prison after claiming ‘I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong’.
Fahad Al Enaze, 31, from Kuwait, sent a number of sexual messages to paedophile hunters posing as an underage girl, The Sun reported.
Al Enaze, who reportedly lives in a Liverpool migrant hotel, was apprehended by members of the Widnes Parents Against Predators group in September 2024.
He pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child at Warrington magistrates’ court on Friday.
Prosecutor Chelsea Kearns told magistrates that Al Enaze had sent sexual texts to a 14-year-old ‘decoy child’.
‘Al Enaze was arrested and told the officer, “I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong”,’ Ms Kearns said.
The age of consent in Kuwait was increased to 18 in March of this year, with sex only permitted in the Middle Eastern emirate within the confines of marriage.
Prior to that men could get married – and by extension have sex – at 17 and women at 15 with parental or judicial consent.
The court heard how Al Enaze continued to ask for photographs of the fictional girl even once told she was supposedly 14.
He also quizzed her on her feelings about sex and suggested he could ‘teach her everything’ if they embarked on a relationship together.
Al Enaze received an eight-month jail sentence but was spared time behind bars after the judge agreed to suspend it for 24 months.
The offender was slapped with a sexual harm prevention order and will be required to sign the sex offenders register for the next decade.
He was also ordered to do 25 rehabilitation activity days and complete 300 hours of unpaid work – as well as being fined £272 for legal costs and a surcharge.
The Kuwati was told by the magistrate that he was ‘very lucky’ not to be handed a custodial sentence.
‘In this country we take these offences seriously. You should be truly ashamed of yourself,’ JP Paul Chadwick said.
