‘Girl assaulted for mistakes as she read Koran’

A MOSQUE teacher put his hand down a young girl’s trousers if she made mistakes while reading to him from the Koran, a court was told.

Mohammed Sadiq, 81, who taught at the Madina Mosque in Cardiff for more than three decades, denies 15 counts of indecent and sexual assault and is on trial.

The allegations involve four alleged victims and relate to the period between 1996 and 2006.

In an interview with police last year, the fourth complainant said: “It was disgusting and it should not have been happening.”

The court heard her family first made a complaint to the police about 10 years ago, but the case did not proceed as her parents felt she was too young to give evidence.

Prosecutors played a video to the jury of her interview with police from that time. The court heard she was part way through primary school at the time of the alleged incidents.

A police officer asked the girl which part of her body the teacher touched. The girl said she did not know the name of the area.

The officer asked: “Is it that you don’t know, or you’re too embarrassed to tell me?” The girl said she did not know.

She stated the teacher put his hand down her trousers and made her promise to read. She also indicated he touched her chest.

Asked what she thought about what he was doing, she replied: “It was disgusting.”

She added: “I didn’t know what to say to my mum.”

The woman, now an adult, gave a second interview to police last summer.

She said: “He used to put his hand down there.”

She added: “I tried to get away, but I was only young and it was difficult.

“I thought it should not be happening, but I didn’t know how to tell him. I was scared I would get slapped or something.”

The complainant said Sadiq would sexually assault her when she made mistakes reading from the Koran.

Asked if anyone else saw what was going on, she said: “The other children were just reading. If you didn’t, you got a slap.”

Prosecutor Suzanne Thomas said: “It was while he was teaching at the mosque, the prosecution say, that the defendant took advantage of his position.”

It is alleged that he created a culture where physical punishment was “normal”.

Sadiq, from Lake East Road in Cyncoed, denies eight counts of indecent assault and seven of sexual assault.

The trial continues.