An Afghan asylum seeker jailed for brutally raping a 15-year-old British schoolgirl in a park charted his journey across Europe on TikTok.

Often clad in designer gear with expensive trainers, this is the image that Jan Jahanzeb, 17, projected to the world once he arrived in Europe from Afghanistan.

But behind the slick façade and boyish good looks, lurked a sexual predator who has now been jailed for 10 years and 8 months for the brutal rape of a 15-year-old girl in a park in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

Jahanzeb acted with his friend, fellow Afghan asylum seeker Israr Niazal, also 17, who was jailed for nine years 10 months for luring their victim away from her friends into a wooded area where they forced themselves upon her.

Much of the content of Jahanzeb’s social media story is staged around parks and public spaces in Belgium as he poses shamelessly in selfies, sometimes showing off the star tattoos on his neck.

Soon after leaving Afghanistan, he appears to have got a tattoo of three stars on his neck, which is a sign he was carrying money and could come from a middle class background in Afghanistan.

His first post on TikTok crops up on May 13, 2024. From his surroundings, he’s already arrived in western Europe and is dressed in a blue and white fleece.

To the background of a traditional Afghan song, he receives comments from some of his 600 followers expressing their admiration in the Pashto saying: ‘There is not debt for you’ [the world owes you nothing’ and ‘May I sacrifice [celebrate] for your life.’

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Jan Jahanzeb, who claims to be 17, began posteing TikTok videos from his home in Afghanistan before he began his nine month journey across Europe to Britain by small boat

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During his trip, Jahanzeb spent some time in Belgium (pictured) before he arrived in the UK in January 2025 – months before he raped a 15-year-old school girl in a park in Warwickshire

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Jahanzeb is seen wearing designer clothes like this Saint Laurent t-shirt, a blue Nike hooded top an an expensive looking gold watch in the videos, suggesting he has money

By that time it’s believed that Jahanzeb, who is an ethnic Pashtun and hails from Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, had completed the majority of his journey from the Taliban-run country.

It’s clear he stays in touch with news from his homeland though. On July 11, 2024, he mourns the death of a Pashtun leader whose funeral is held in Peshawar, across the border in Pakistan.

The judge Sylvia de Bertodano at his sentencing told Jahanzeb: ‘You left Afghanistan after you say threats were made to you and your family, and you spent about nine months travelling to the UK.

‘You travelled through many countries, often on foot and I am sure that your journey was both difficult and dangerous. I accept that this amounts to a traumatic set of experiences for a young person. I am told that is possible that you are suffering from PTSD. ‘

But in many of his posts, dressed in designer gear and sometimes sunglasses, Jahanzeb appears not to have a care in the world as he preens at the camera, often accompanied by a backing track of Dari music.

On January 4, 2025, he posts the traditional Muslim one finger gesture, symbolising that there is only one God. The sign did become hijacked by ISIS, but long pre-dated the Islamic terrorists.

The audio backing track accompanying this image seems positive: ‘Don’t be proud of others. Be a man. Allah gave you honour/zeal. He gave you a body and gave me a body?

‘For what day reason did God give you a tongue? Live with honour. Don’t live with dishonour. Don’t waste your time by saying death to something and say long live something.’

A few days later, he was pictured in a puffa jacket in what appears to be France or Belgium, shortly before he makes his successful voyage across the Channel in a small boat.

By this time, Jahanzeb has switched to a second TikTok account and somehow generated more than 8k followers.

According to what he told the authorities, he made the Channel attempt four times in all, but was thwarted by French police on three occasions.

By January 18, he appears to be in more comfortable surroundings, with a plush hotel room or reception centre in the background. This is believed to be after his arrival in the UK.

On January 6, 2025 he unusually posted in English, under the heading ‘My Life’, showing a series of emojis becoming progressively sadder from 2020 onwards with a broken heart at 2024, possibly signifying leaving his family in Afghanistan.

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Jahanzeb’s mugshot provided by Warwickshire Police after he was jailed for raping the schoolgirl. Israr Niazal (right), also 17, pleaded guilty to raping the teenage victim, having arrived in the UK in November 2024

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Chilling CCTV released by police showed two boys leading their victim across a bridge to a park where they forced her to perform oral sex on them

For 2025, he showed an image of a gravestone, but also of a dove flying free, perhaps showing that as the Channel crossing lay ahead, his life could go two very different ways.

Not all the comments on his posts are positive though. One, made in the last 24 hours, reads in Pashto: ‘Something brutal has happened to a 15 year old girl, shame on anyone who has done it.’

Perhaps the most astonishing footage from Jahanzeb’s TikTok account shows him apparently without a care in the world, in the same park in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, where the rape took place.

The clip, posted the day after the rape, and only hours before both youths were arrested, shows Jahanzeb posing in a white T-shirt and jeans to the backing of a popular Pashto song called Yari Tawan Lari.

Other videos on Jahanzeb’s TikTok show him with his partner-in-crime Niazal in what appears to be the same park a few days before the attack.

In July, at what appears to be an amusement park, a friend is videoing him preening for the camera when two girls walk past and jokingly make heart signs with their fingers, which elicits a bashful smile from Jahanzeb.

In another, while posing in traditional Pashtun dress in a park, the three-star tattoo on his neck is clearly visible.

Ironically, given his crime, in another TikTok video which he reposts, he appears to be staking his claim for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

A poster of a schoolgirl being silenced with a man’s hand around her mouth is accompanied by an anti-Taliban sentiment: ‘May God destroy the oppressors, the poor virgins of our country, Amen’, accompanied by Afghan flag and crying emojis.

The videos came as more details emerged of the pair’s asylum claims to the Home Office after they both arrived in Britain on small boats within two months of each other.

Niazal came to the UK in November 2024, claiming that his father had been killed by the Taliban, while Jahanzeb arrived in January of this year, after living in Belgium for some time.

He told the authorities his crossing to the UK was his fourth attempt, having been thwarted by French police on earlier tries. His story was that he was being threatened by relatives of a fatal car crash involving Jahanzeb’s father.

Both teenagers were temporarily housed in Kent, before being sent to council care in Warwickshire.

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He is often dressed in gleaming white trainers and T-shirts bearing the name of designers such as Louis Vuitton

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On TikTok he even posted a video in same Midlands park where he brutally raped a 15-year-old girl. The video was uploaded just hours after the attack on the girl had taken place

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Jahanzeb arrived in the UK in January of this year, after living in Belgium for some time. Here he posed with two friends at the Bullring in central Birmingham

Ahead of sentencing them yesterday, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano accepted a legal challenge mounted by the Daily Mail and agreed to lift a ban on naming them, which had been imposed due to their age.

She told Jahanzeb – who will turn 18 in three weeks’ time and received 10 years, eight months in jail: ‘When you discussed the offence you tried to minimise your responsibility, blaming your co-defendant for getting you involved, and the victim herself for pushing you and kissing you, as well as the fact that you were drunk.

‘You say that you are inexperienced in sexual matters; your reluctance to talk about it makes the truth of this assertion difficult to assess, although I do of course understand that given your age your sexual experience is necessarily limited.’

Now, following Jahanzeb’s conviction for rape, he faces deportation back to Afghanistan at the end of his long sentence.