Two men guilty of rape and other offences in Rotherham grooming trial
Two men have been found guilty of multiple sexual offences after a court heard how two teenagers were regularly raped over months in Rotherham.
Sheffield Crown Court was told during a five-week trial how the girls were sexually assaulted several times a week over a period of six months in the South Yorkshire town by a gang of men who referred to them as “fresh meat”.
Prosecutors said the teenagers were “powerless to prevent the actions of older and more mature individuals determined to exploit them for sexual purposes”.
On Monday, Romulad Stefan Houphouet, who is now 37, and Absolom Sigiyo (pictured right), now 41, were found guilty of a number of offences including rape.
A third defendant, Jacek Brzozowski (pictured left), now 35, was cleared of the one charge he was facing in the trial, of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, but he admitted a charge of penetrative sexual activity with a child earlier this year.
Ivorian national Houphouet, of Burngreave in Sheffield, and Sigiyo, a Zimbabwean national of Catcliffe in Rotherham, will be sentenced on Wednesday, Judge Sarah Wright said as she remanded both in custody.
Polish national Brzozowski, of Rawmarsh, Rotherham, was bailed and will be sentenced on April 14.
When the trial opened last month, prosecutor Gordon Stables told a jury both the complainants were living in a children’s home when they were befriended by the defendants “and also other associates”.
Mr Stables said these were “all older men in their twenties, or thereabouts, whose sole intention was to engage in penetrative sexual activity with them, knowing they were under the age of consent”.
The prosecutor said: “The defendants gained the girls’ trust and confidence by plying them with alcohol and giving them cigarettes at house parties, and offering them flirtatious attention.”
He said: “Both girls became conditioned to having regular sexual intercourse with the same male.”
Mr Stables said: “The clear pre-meditated intention was to ensure that the girls entered into and remained in a state of compliance so that they would surrender easily and offer no resistance to the sexual advances and activity that would inevitably follow.
“Psychologically, the girls were made to feel that sexual activity was how they repaid the debt they owed the defendants for the provision of alcohol and tobacco.
“Once the males were sexually satisfied, however, the girls were treated as having served their purpose – at least temporarily – and they were often then ignored and expected to make their own way home.
“In this way, (the girls) were sexually groomed within an environment of dependency.”
He said the men referred to them as “fresh meat”.
Mr Stables explained how Houphouet befriended the two girls in Rotherham town centre one evening more than 10 years ago and raped one of them in an alleyway that night.
He said Houphouet took both girls the short distance to a house in the town and introduced them to Sigiyo “and other males who were undoubtedly present”.
It became clear from the outset that Houphouet had picked one of the girls “as his victim” and Sigiyo had chosen the other, Mr Stables told the jury.
The convictions are the latest following the National Crime Agency’s investigation into child sexual sexploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, which is called Operation Stovewood.
It was set up in the wake of the landmark Jay Report which found in 2014 that at least 1,400 girls were abused by gangs of men of mainly Pakistani heritage in Rotherham between those dates.
The NCA says Stovewood is the single largest law enforcement operation of its kind undertaken in the UK, and has identified more than 1,100 children involved in the exploitation between 1997 and 2013 – almost all girls.
Previous estimates have put the cost of Operation Stovewood at about £90 million.
Senior investigating officer Kath Blain said: “This is one of the most harrowing cases I have investigated. Sigiyo and Houphouet lured two vulnerable girls to parties where they kept the children intoxicated so they could abuse them in the worst ways.
“Brzozwski contributed to their suffering, including by having sex with one of the girls who he knew was a child and vulnerable.
“The victims have shown extraordinary bravery in reporting their abuse.
“What happened to them can never be undone, but I hope the verdicts today will at least give them a sense that their abusers have been held to account and justice has been done.
“The National Crime Agency continues to pursue justice for numerous other people who we have identified were abused as children. I really encourage anyone who was abused as a child to report it to the police.”
Martin McRobb, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “These defendants preyed on vulnerable young girls who they knew they could groom with alcohol and gifts with the sole aim of repeatedly sexually exploiting them.
“The victims in this case are now adults but they have had to live with the trauma caused by the vile and serious sexual offences committed against them in their youth.
“We know it can be difficult to talk about such abuse, and I would like to extend my thanks to the victims for the courage and fortitude they showed in coming forward and giving evidence against these men.”
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