Eight men jailed for ‘degrading and violent’ sexual exploitation of girls in Rotherham
Eight men have been given jail sentences of up to 19 years for sexually exploiting teenage girls in Rotherham.
A month-long trial at Sheffield Crown Court heard how the men “sexualised” their victims and, in some instances, subjected them to acts of a “degrading and violent nature”.
One girl and her family told police and their MP and then home secretary David Blunkett about the abuse and eventually moved to Spain to get away from the men.
The court heard that this victim had gone to the police in 2003, saying she had been repeatedly raped by Sageer Hussain when she was 13.
Judge Sarah Wright, who jailed Hussain for 19 years, said he had conducted a “campaign of violent rape” against the vulnerable 13-year-old.
Hussain’s brothers, Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras, were jailed in April following the first successful prosecution of a grooming gang in Rotherham since the child sexual exploitation scandal engulfed the South Yorkshire town two years ago.
Judge Wright told the eight men: “The victim of all eight of you was vulnerable. She was just 13 to 14 years old.
“Although she had a loving and supportive family, and was doing well at school as she was reaching adolescence, she was susceptible to the attention that you and others gave her.
“She was targeted, sexualised and subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature.”
She said: “The childhood and adolescence of each of the victims can never be reclaimed.
“Each has suffered severe psychological harm. They continue, and will continue to suffer, considerable trauma throughout their lives as a result of your actions.”
The judge added: “I would like to take this opportunity to commend wholeheartedly the remarkable courage of all of the victims in this case.
“All three have shown immeasurable bravery in coming forward to give their accounts.”
Mohammed Whied, 32, of Psalters Lane, Kimberworth, was jailed for five years after being found guilty of one count of aiding and abetting rape.
Ishtiaq Khaliq, 33, of Cherry Brook, Rotherham, was sentenced to 17 years in prison after being convicted of one rape and three indecent assaults.
Waleed Ali, 34, of Canklow Road, Rotherham, was jailed for 13 years after being found guilty of one rape and one indecent assault.
Asif Ali, 30, of Clough Street, Rotherham, was given a 12-year term after being convicted of one rape.
Masoued Malik, 32, of Bridgewater Way, Rotherham, was jailed for 15 years after being found guilty of one rape, one count of conspiracy to commit indecent assault and one of false imprisonment.
Naeem Rafiq, 33, of Clarendon Road, Rotherham, was sentenced to eight years after being convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit indecent assault and one of false imprisonment.
Basharat Hussain, 40, from Goole, was convicted of one indecent assault. Hussain, who is currently serving a sentence at HMP Wakefield, was given an additional seven years to run alongside his current term.
Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Martin Tate said: “Significant sentences have been handed to these individuals for their significant and horrific crimes.
“The rape and sexual abuse of children is completely abhorrent and this group have shown no remorse for their crimes, forcing the young women who came forward to report this awful abuse to relive traumatic experiences before the court.
“We are indebted to the victims, who have supported our investigation and have shown remarkable strength in attending court to give evidence.
“This has been a lengthy and complicated process but I hope they are pleased with today’s results. These dangerous sexual offenders are now behind bars where they can cause no further harm, thanks in large part to the victims’ trust and confidence in our investigation.”
Hussains’ crimes part of wider jigaw of abuse in Rotherham
But everyone investigating the horrors inflicted on a generation of youngsters in the South Yorkshire town knows the offending of the Hussain brothers and their associates was just one part of a huge and sickening jigsaw.
Ringleader Arshid was jailed for 35 years in April by a judge who told him: “The harm you have caused is of unimaginable proportions”.
Basharat was jailed for 25 years and Bannaras 19 years following the first successful prosecution of a grooming gang in Rotherham since the child sexual exploitation scandal engulfed the town two years ago.
Rotherham became a byword for the exploitation of teenage girls and the failure of police and social workers to stop it happening with the publication of the Jay Report in August 2014.
Professor Alexis Jay’s report shocked the nation partly due to the scale of exploitation it described, finding that at least 1,400 children had been raped, trafficked and groomed in the town over a 16-year period.
She found ”utterly appalling” examples of ”children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally-violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone”.
The report also laid bare the extend to which police and council officials failed to act on what they knew, and explicitly questioned whether this neglect was related to the perpetrators largely being adult men of a Pakistani heritage.
Although the Jay Report resulted in the Rotherham exploitation becoming a national scandal, it was the previous major prosecution of a grooming gang in the town that kick-started this process.
In 2010, five men – Umar Razaq, Razwan Razaq, Zafran Ramzan, Adil Hussain, Mohsin Khan – were found guilty of a string of sex offences against girls aged between 12 and 16.
This case provoked some media attention but did not gain nationwide coverage.
But it was followed by a growing number of prosecutions of a similar nature around the UK, including in Derby, Oxford and Rochdale.
The Times reporter Andrew Norfolk exposed a pattern of mainly white teenage girls being groomed by gangs of adult men of a Pakistani heritage.
When Mr Norfolk began to disclose in detail the stories of girls who had been exploited in Rotherham, it started a chain of events that led to Rotherham Council asking Professor Jay to look into what was happening.
Waves of criticism followed, aimed mainly at Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire Police.
Resignations included the leader and chief executive of the council as well as its director of children’s services.
The most high-profile casualty was South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Shaun Wright, who was the councillor in charge of Rotherham’s children’s services between 2005 and 2010.
A further review of Rotherham Council by the Government’s Troubled Families chief, Louise Casey, heaped more criticism on an authority she labelled as “not fit for purpose” and “in denial”.
That led to the then communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles handing over its powers to a panel of appointed commissioners.
Although South Yorkshire Police continued to investigate aspects of historical exploitation it had already begun to examine – like the Hussain brothers’ and their gang, in December 2014, the chief constable invited the National Crime Agency to take over the detailed and huge task of investigating what happened between 1997 and 2013.
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