BBC journalist was targeted by sex pest who made lewd comments to her

A BBC journalist has revealed how obscene phone calls were made to her phone by a convicted sex pest.

Lucy Manning, who works as a special correspondent at the news corporation, spent more than two years trying to get her offender sentenced after the man made a series of lewd phone calls in October 2022.

Ms Manning's horrific ordeal began when she received a call on her phone from a withheld number and, after picking up, she was met with the voice of a man making odd noises and appearing to masturbate down the phone.

The journalist reacted in horror and immediately hung up, but her phone continued to ring. In a bid to gather more evidence against the offender, Ms Manning picked up again and began recording the call.

She listened to the man calling out her name, 'using vulgar language', 'and making other obscene and lewd comments' for five minutes, all of which she captured on her recording.

Ms Manning took the recording to the Metropolitan Police and within two months they were able to trace the suspect to an address in Lancashire.

But it wasn't until earlier this week that the man, Amjad Khan, was finally found guilty of 'malicious communications by sending an offensive, indecent or threatening message' at Burnley Magistrates' Court.

Reflecting on her two year crusade, Ms Manning said it was an 'eye-opening experience into why so many sexual offences go unreported or unpunished', which the Met and Lancashire Police have since apologised for.

Immediately after the incident in 2022, Ms Manning called 999 to report what had happened, before visiting her local police station the next day where she gave a statement and handed over a copy of the tape recording.

It was around this time that the journalist was covering the case of Wayne Couzens, the serving Metropolitan Police officer who kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021.

Ms Manning became concerned that, like Couzens, who had previously committed less serious sexual offences, her offender could go on to commit more serious crimes if he wasn't caught promptly.

She told BBC News: 'Coincidentally, I was speaking to Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley the next day about the interim Casey report, commissioned after Sarah Everard's murder, which dealt with the force's institutional problems.

'As each day passed, I feared my offender could go on to sexually assault someone. I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure that wouldn't happen.'

It wasn't until two months later, in December 2022, that police finally identified the withheld number and tracked the suspect down to an address in Lancashire, meaning Lancashire Police would be taking over.

It took the force several days to obtain the information about Ms Manning's case, only after she chased them up.

But a week later, she was told an officer had visited the home of Khan, but he hadn't answered the door.

While Lancashire Police said another officer would be sent around again, they added that they wouldn't be able to arrest the man as he 'didn't meet the custody threshold'.

Ms Manning relayed her concerns that the incident could be a 'gateway crime' to more serious offences, which seemingly had some effect as a month later Khan was arrested.

He was then brought in for questioning where he denied calling Ms Manning and claimed he’d lost his phone.

Officers told Ms Manning it would be hard to charge him without further evidence and Khan was bailed on the condition he didn’t contact the BBC journalist.

In March 2023, police told Ms Manning they were going to close the investigation with no further action, which only caused her further frustration.

She said: 'I was furious - they had the audio recording and they’d matched the phone number to the suspect. I felt their actions had given him the chance to get rid of the phone.'

'I told them I wouldn’t accept that decision and would appeal against it, but in truth I wasn’t sure how to do that.'

Ms Manning was later contacted by a detective sergeant a few weeks later, who told her that they had carried out a Victims’ Right to Review on her behalf and had reopened the case.

Police made another breakthrough in April when they found at that Khan had used a different SIM card to make the call to Ms Manning on the same phone.

But, there seemed to be more hold ups, as it took another two months for Khan to be rearrested, while the evidence against him was eventually sent to prosecutors in November that year.

In December, Khan was charged with an offence of malicious communications by sending an offensive, indecent or threatening message. He pleaded not guilty to the offence after making his first court appearance in February 2024.

Khan was due to appear on trial at Lancaster Magistrate’s Court on November 5, but failed to turn up after his lawyer claimed he 'might not have seen the letter sent two weeks earlier, which changed the date of the hearing'.

The trial was rescheduled to Monday November 11, where Khan was finally found guilty of the crime against Ms Manning, more than two years since it happened.

But in another shocking twist, just days after his conviction, the journalist discovered it was not the first time Khan had been found guilty of such a horrid offence.

'Remarkably, I discovered a Lancashire Telegraph article from 2015 headlined “Blackburn man made 15,000 ‘dirty’ calls in 91 days to total strangers",' she revealed.

'It was the same man, convicted nearly a decade ago. I was incredulous. From start to finish it felt like there were so many unnecessary obstacles to getting a conviction.'

Ms Manning said that despite, the process taking so long, she was 'pleased I pushed so hard to get this man convicted'.

But she was also 'dismayed' over the efforts she had to go through to get there and highlighted concerns over 'the inefficiency, the failures and the delays' of the police that could see other similar crimes go unpunished.

In response to the article, the Met Police told BBC News: 'Our handling of this case clearly fell short and we do not underestimate the awful impact upon Ms Manning.

'Such serious offences cause very real fear for victims and deserve a professional and swift response.'

Lancashire Police added that their 'initial handling of this case did not meet the standard expected but following a review and further contact with the victim a man was arrested, charged and convicted.

'We hope that the successful conviction gives her some sense that justice has been done, although we recognise this has taken longer than she may have hoped.'