A British Airways pilot has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison after admitting to raping and sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl he contacted through Instagram, BBC reported.Kwame Yeboah, 30, pleaded guilty to three counts of rape of a girl under 13 and one count of sexual assault. He was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison and given a 15-year restraining order.According to prosecutors, Yeboah first contacted the girl online in late 2025 after she initially claimed she was 17. However, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would have become clear during their conversations, and certainly when they met in person, that she was a young child.The CPS said Yeboah sent the girl intimate images of himself and gradually steered their conversations towards sexual topics. He also called her regularly, which made her believe he cared about her and that they were in a genuine relationship.In February, Yeboah travelled hundreds of miles from his home in Reading to Wirral, Merseyside, to meet the girl. Prosecutors said he drove her around before taking her to an isolated location, where he raped and sexually assaulted her.The victim later told Merseyside Police she felt nervous and confused and struggled to understand what was happening. The abuse came to light a few days later after one of her friends told her mother, who reported the matter to the police.Investigators identified Yeboah using details he had shared with the girl. When arrested, he answered “no comment” to all questions during police interviews.Thomas Hanlon, Senior Crown Prosecutor, said Yeboah “would have known early on” that the victim was far younger than she had first claimed.“She spoke about school and sent images of herself in a school uniform. When he met her in person, it would have been obvious that she was a very young child,” Hanlon said.He added, “He groomed the victim into believing she was in a relationship with someone who cared about her. In reality, he was an adult man who abused his position and exploited her for his own sexual gratification.”Yeboah had worked as a First Officer with British Airways since 2023. He had also spent more than 17 years involved in basketball as both a player and a referee with Basketball England.
