Masoud Abdi has had his sentence increased after the Court of Appeal stepped in over a Leeds child sexual abuse case that started on social media and ended in filmed abuse. According to the government account of the case, judges on Friday 5 June 2026 raised his punishment to an 11-year extended sentence after the Solicitor General referred it under the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme. For Leeds and West Yorkshire readers, it is a stark update from a case heard locally but carrying a wider warning about how quickly online grooming can turn into serious, in-person harm.

Abdi was originally sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on 10 September 2025. He had pleaded guilty to one count of sexual activity with a child, three counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, and one count of making indecent images of children. At that hearing, he was given six years in prison and an indefinite restraining order. The Court of Appeal has now increased that to an 11-year extended sentence, made up of eight years’ imprisonment and a further three years on licence.

The court heard that Abdi first contacted the victim over social media and lied about his age. Even after he learned she was 14, he continued the contact and began what was described as a relationship with her. He groomed the teenager online, kept the contact going through phone calls and bought her gifts. Those details mattered because they showed a pattern of manipulation, not a single isolated act.

In March 2025, the offending escalated. Abdi encouraged the child to share indecent images and sent indecent images of himself to her. The court heard that he recorded and kept the victim’s images on his mobile phone. Later that same month, he went to the victim’s home and sexually abused her while filming it. Judges were also told that indecent images of other children were found on his phone.

Solicitor General Ellie Reeves KC MP said Abdi was 'a dangerous sexual predator' who deliberately targeted a teenager he knew to be 14. She said the victim had shown 'immense courage' in coming forward and welcomed the appeal court’s decision to increase the sentence. The intervention also shows that a sentence passed in Leeds is not always the final word when law officers believe the punishment falls short of the seriousness of the offending.

This case is first and foremost about a child who was targeted, groomed and abused. But it also shows why close scrutiny matters when serious offences come before the courts, especially in cases where online contact is used to gain trust before abuse takes place in person. The revised sentence does not undo the damage done. What it does do is place Abdi under a longer sentence and extended supervision, while the Leeds case stands as another hard reminder that child protection now stretches far beyond the school gate and into the phones young people use every day.