A convicted child sex offender is wanted by police after not turning up at court to be sentenced. 

Abm Salah Uddin, aged 38, was due to appear at Oxford Crown Court on March 9 for engaging in sexual communications with a child, but failed to do so.

The child in question was 14-years-old. 

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The former restaurant worker was convicted of the offence on 9 February.

Uddin was last seen at approximately 1.35pm on February 28 at Goring train station.

He is described as an Asian male, around 5ft 4ins tall with short black hair.

He was last seen wearing tinted spectacles, a navy blue duffel coat, a sweater with horizontal dark blue and white stripes and light grey trainers.

He was also carrying two black holdalls.

Prosecuting, Charles Ward-Jackson said that the officer in the case had last spoken to Uddin on the telephone on February 27 to remind him of the upcoming court hearing.

That, it would appear, had spooked him. Nobody had heard from him since.

The offences occurred in the summer of 2021 and then living in Henley, Uddin befriended what he supposed were children online and steered the conversation around to sex.

Oxford Mail:

The ‘girls’ with whom he thought he was talking were, in fact, decoy accounts operated by adults.

Defence barrister Christopher Pembridge asked Judge Ian Pringle KC, who was then dealing with the case, to order a probation pre-sentence report.

Unlike in other similar cases, however, no explicit images were sent by his client or requested of the ‘girls’, he said. Uddin had no previous convictions.

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Judge Pringle agreed to the request and granted Uddin bail.

At the sentencing hearing, recorder Samantha Presland said: “He definitely scarpered [and] he’s got a week’s head start on everybody.”

She suggested that he was ‘likely to be heading to Bangladesh’, where he has family.

Mr Ward-Jackson told the court that Uddin’s brother-in-law, who lives in Islington, had contacted their extended family in Bangladesh.

They said they had not heard from the defendant.

Police are now appealing for the public's help to trace him. 

PC Kate Sherwood, based at Abingdon police station, said: “I am appealing for the public’s help in tracing Salah Uddin, who did not appear at court for his sentencing hearing.

“If anybody see him, do not approach him, but call Thames Valley Police on 999, quoting reference number 43230106575.”