Jail for serial sex offender who targeted women on Tubes – London

A “calculated” sex offender who prowled night Tubes targeting women has been jailed for more than four years following a British Transport Police (BTP) investigation.

Salman Yousaf, 46, and of HMP Pentonville, pleaded guilty to nine charges in total – eight counts of Sexual Assault and one of Outraging Public Decency.

At Inner London Crown Court on 20 May a judge sentenced him to four-and-a-half years imprisonment, with a further four years to be served on licence when he’s released.

He was also placed on the sex offenders register for life and handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO).

Yousaf was already serving a seven-year jail term when, in 2024, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) informed BTP detectives of his offending modus operandi.

This information was compared against ongoing investigations into sexual offending on the London Underground network in which the offence matched the MPS case and a suspect had not been identified.

Extensive enquiries resulted in Yousaf being linked to a total of nine offences committed between 2017 and 2021.

All occurred on board Tube trains at night.

The first took place at around 5am on 11 March 2017 when he masturbated in front a woman on a Central Line service near Stratford.   

Then on eight separate occasions, all on Central Line and Jubilee Line services, Yousaf singled out women and sexually assaulted them.

He made a conscious effort to target women who had fallen asleep on night Tubes.  

Detectives arrested Yousaf in prison on 16 April 2024, and he offered no comment to all questions put to him.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorised nine charges against him in total. Then, as his trial approached, he changed his plea from not guilty and admitted to all the offences. 

BTP Detective Constable Iryna Cuthbert said: “Salman Yousaf is a calculated predator who deliberately exploited the night-time rail network to target lone women, using their isolation to commit a series of premeditated crimes.

“Even when confronted, he showed a complete lack of remorse – the same absence of remorse he demonstrated at his sentencing.

“Thanks to the information provided by our colleagues at the MPS, we were able to link him to a catalogue of vile sexual offending and ultimately extend his stay behind bars beyond 2030.

“Yousaf’s crimes will have a lasting impact on the women he targeted. I want to acknowledge their bravery in coming forward and reporting what happened, and I hope his sentence brings them some measure of justice.

“Tackling sexual offending on the railway is a top priority for BTP and we encourage anyone who is victim of, or witness to, this crime type to report it to us using our 61016 text service.”