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BBC News
12-02-2025
- BBC News
Rochdale: Trial hears girl, 13, was 'sex slave' to gang
A woman allegedly used as a "sex slave" by a group of Asian men when she was a teenager has told a jury "everybody knew what was going on".The witness, known as Girl A, told a trial into alleged sexual abuse by an eight-strong gang in Rochdale that she was regarded as a "prostitute" rather than a 13-year-old child. The eight men deny multiple sexual offences involving two underage girls, including rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child between 2001 and alleged victim, Girl B, told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court that police and social workers knew what was going on but "weren't concerned enough to do anything about it". Children's home Girl B said the abuse began when she was living in a children's home and had started to spend time at Rochdale market, where Mohammed Zahid, then in his 40s, owned a said that she was taken weekly to the basement of a shop in Rochdale, Maria Fashions, owned by another man, Mushtaq the basement room below the shop, there was a bare mattress on which she would have sex with market stallholder Zahid, the shop owner Ahmed and a third man, Kasir Bashir, the jury was told. Girl B said she had told the police and social services about what was going on."They said I was a prostitute. I was prostituting myself," she told the court."I don't remember them being concerned enough to do anything about it."I remember knowing that they knew what was going on."It always happened, it was nothing new to me."I assumed they all knew. The police had picked me up. It all just seemed to me everybody knew what was going on." Earlier, prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC told jurors both girls were sexually abused because their troubled backgrounds made them susceptible."They were children passed around for sex, abused, degraded and then discarded," Mr Scamardella said,"They became sex slaves."Girl B said the abuse ended after she was fostered with a woman who was "like a mum" and lived away from Rochdale. She said she tracked Bashir down on Facebook years later, took a screen shot of his photo and contacted also spotted her second alleged abuser, Ahmed, selling fruit and vegetables out of a van near a school. She said she took a photo of the registration plate and gave it to the asked why she had not reported the sexual abuse before she first contacted police in May, 2021, Girl B said there was "no reason" for her to think it was wrong because "nobody did anything about it" when she was a said: "I felt like that was my purpose. I think it had happened that much."I never saw it as anything unnatural. I just felt like that was what I was there for."I normalised it so much in my own head."From the way I see things as a child to now, are two different things."Mohammed Zahid, Kashir Bashir, Mushtaq Ahmed, Roheez Khan, Mohammed Shahzad, Nisar Hussain, Naheem Akram and Arfhan Khan deny all the allegations against trial continues. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Poet grateful mum turned him over to police at 16
Wales' former children's laureate says he is grateful his mum called the police on him at the age of 16 after he attacked her. Connor Allen is a poet, writer and actor and was Children's Laureate Wales from 2021 to 2023, but struggled during his teenage years. He pleaded guilty to assault, battery and grievous bodily harm in court but was given a second chance after an intervention by those closest to him. Connor has since turned his life around and is trying to inspire the next generation. Connor, who was raised on a council estate in Newport, said the anger had been simmering during his teenage years. His dad was absent from his life and as a mixed-race teenager he often struggled to fit in. "It was just my mum, a single mum, white mum, and my father is black Jamaican. So that absence for me growing up without a father but also without that 'blackness'," he said. He started getting in trouble with the police and it soon came to a head when he lashed out at his mum. "We were arguing and shouting. My anger erupted on my mum. Obviously there's instant regret, but the action has already been done," he said. Looking back, Connor is full of admiration for her making that decision. "She didn't know what was going to happen to me when the police took me. "But to have that courage to actually say 'something needs to happen because my son is off the rails,' I always look back at that courage." Now 32, he still clearly remembers sitting in the courtroom facing his mum. "Even though she was going through all that hurt she still pleaded with the judge," he said. His teachers at Lliswerry Comprehensive School had also seen his potential. Connor said he feels blessed that they fought for him to have a second chance. He said: "My mum, the teachers, they wrote a letter to the judge and asked for a suspended sentence. I look back at that period and think if it wasn't for the people who believed in me where would I have been?" Connor said it was "empowering" to have that support despite admitting what he did that night was "horrific". "To go through all of that and it culminating in you lashing out to have people at your lowest moment they still believe in you... that for me was huge," he said. His love of writing came from reading books that his mum would buy him as a child. In particular, the Harry Potter series which allowed him to go into different worlds other than his own. He also took inspiration from the stories told in grime and rap music. That led him to write The Making of a Monster, a grime-theatre mash-up about growing up, working out his place in the world and the danger of a life spiralling out of control. Connor is currently writing a sequel Forgiveness of a Monster about finding forgiveness for himself, and his absent father. "I always believe in second chances, If I can give that give of empowerment and belief then who knows what they can go on and achieve," he said. You can hear Connor's interview on Books that Made Me with Lucy Owen on BBC Radio Wales at 18:30 GMT on Friday and then on Sounds 'Photography completely turned my life around' Writing saved my life, says rapper-poet Six poems the world still talks about
