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The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Seven men face ‘lengthy' sentences for sexual abuse of teenage girls in Rochdale
Seven members of an Asian grooming gang are facing 'lengthy' prison sentences after they were convicted of the sexual exploitation of two white teenage schoolgirls in Rochdale. Social services and police apologised for their past failings surrounding the victims who were abused in the town between 2001 and 2006 after a jury returned unanimous verdicts on Friday against the defendants. Both girls were treated as 'sex slaves' from the age of 13, said prosecutors, amid 'deeply troubled home lives' as they were given drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, places to stay and people to be with. Soon after, they were expected to have sex 'whenever and wherever' the defendants and other men wanted, in filthy flats, on rancid mattresses, in cars, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses. Girl A told the jury at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court that she could have been targeted by more than 200 offenders as her phone number was swapped but said 'there was that many it was hard to keep count'. She told local children's services in 2004 that she was 'hanging around' with groups of older men, drinking and taking cannabis, the court heard. Giving evidence, Girl B said she was living in a local children's home when she was preyed on by market traders Mohammed Zahid, 64; Mushtaq Ahmed, 67; and Kasir Bashir, 50 – all born in Pakistan – who were stallholders on the town's indoor market. She said she presumed various agencies knew what was going on as police regularly picked her up after social workers labelled her a 'prostitute'. Girl B told the hearing she had since read her file held by Rochdale social services which, she said, stated she had been selling herself for sex from the age of 10. Following the verdicts, Sharon Hubber, Rochdale Borough Council's director of children's services, said: 'We know that these convictions are unlikely to erase the memories of the abuse these women were subjected to as children, but we hope they do bring some form of closure. 'We know that more could and should have been done by the people who were working here at the time, and for that we are truly sorry.' Detective Superintendent Alan Clitherow, of Greater Manchester Police, said: 'There was information at the time that police and other agencies could, and should, have done something with and we didn't. 'The way those victims were dealt with at the time is indefensible and inexcusable. 'We have made comprehensive apologies for that. We're not perfect but we are very much improving now on how we manage these investigations.' Assistant Chief Constable Steph Parker added: 'I know that our past failings have meant there are people who doubt the police's commitment today to putting grooming gangs behind bars where they belong. 'Let me be clear – time is no barrier to justice, and we are actively working with dozens of survivors on numerous investigations to ensure no offender gets away with this. When you are ready, we will listen. 'Our dedicated, child sexual exploitation, major investigations team has almost 100 investigators working every day to listen to victims and to bring cases to court.' Father-of-three Zahid – known as Boss Man – gave free underwear from his lingerie stall to both complainants and also money, alcohol and food in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends. In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years in an earlier grooming gang case after he engaged in sexual activity in 2006 with a 15-year-old girl whom he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school. Bashir did not attend the current trial as jurors were ordered not to speculate why but it can be revealed that he absconded while on bail before the trial got under way. Police are actively seeking Bashir and say they are 'determined to find him no matter where he thinks he can hide'. It can also be reported that co-defendants Mohammed Shahzad, 44; Naheem Akram, 48; and Nisar Hussain, 41; were remanded in custody with their bail revoked in January before the jury was sworn in. Police received intelligence that the three Rochdale-born taxi drivers were planning to leave the UK and had already paid a deposit for their transport, the court heard. All three denied the accusation but Judge Jonathan Seely said the court was not prepared to take a risk that they, too, would abscond. A seventh defendant, Pakistani-born Roheez Khan, 39, also featured in another previous Rochdale grooming trial in 2013 when he was one of five men convicted of sexually exploiting a 'profoundly vulnerable' 15-year-old girl in 2008 and 2009. Khan was jailed for six and a half years for engaging in sexual activity with a child and witness intimidation. After three weeks of deliberations by the jury, Zahid, of, Station Road, Crumpsall, was convicted of raping Girl A and Girl B, who did not know each other, on multiple occasions. Jurors also found him guilty of offences of indecency with a child and procuring a child to have sex. Ahmed, of Corona Avenue, Oldham; and Bashir, of Napier Street East, Oldham; were convicted of multiple counts of rape and indecency with a child, in relation to Girl B. Shahzad, of Beswicke Royds Street, Rochdale; Akram, of Manley Road, Rochdale; and Hussain, of New Field Close, Rochdale; were convicted of multiple counts of rape against Girl A. Roheez Khan, of Athole Street, Rochdale, was found guilty of a single count of rape against Girl A. Judge Seely told the men they all faced 'lengthy' prison sentences as he remanded them in custody ahead of sentencing on a date to be fixed. All the perpetrators were prosecuted as part of Operation Lytton, an ongoing investigation since 2015 by Greater Manchester Police into historical child sexual exploitation in Rochdale. A total of 37 individuals have been charged so far, with five more trials scheduled to take place from September onwards.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Seven men used teenage girls as ‘sex slaves' in Rochdale
Seven Asian men have been convicted of the sexual exploitation of two white teenage schoolgirls in Rochdale. The abusers preyed on the vulnerabilities of the victims to groom them as 'sex slaves' from the age of 13 in the Greater Manchester town between 2001 and 2006. Both girls had 'deeply troubled home lives' and were given drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, places to stay and people to be with, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard. Soon afterwards, they were expected to have sex 'whenever and wherever' the abusers and other men wanted, in filthy flats, on rancid mattresses, in cars, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses. Jurors deliberated for three weeks before delivering unanimous guilty verdicts on Friday. Three of the abusers, Mohammed Zahid, 64, Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, and Kasir Bashir, 50 – all born in Pakistan – were stallholders at the town's indoor market. Opening the prosecution case in January, Rossano Scamardella KC said Rochdale had been 'blighted' by child sexual exploitation and that one of the two complainants, Girl A, was abused by many other Asian men. Girl A told the jury she could have been targeted by more than 200 offenders as her phone number was swapped but said 'there was that many it was hard to keep count'. The court heard that she told local children's services in 2004 that she was 'hanging around' with groups of older men, drinking and taking cannabis. Giving evidence, Girl B said she was living in a local children's home when she was preyed on by Zahid, Ahmed and Bashir. She said she presumed various agencies knew what was going on as police regularly picked her up after social workers labelled her a 'prostitute'. Girl B told the hearing she had since read her file held by Rochdale social services which she said stated she had been selling herself for sex from the age of 10. Both complainants denied claims from defence barristers that they fabricated the allegations to secure compensation. Father-of-three Zahid, known as Boss Man, gave free underwear from his lingerie stall to both complainants, and also money, alcohol and food in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends. In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years in an earlier grooming gang case after he engaged in sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school in 2006. Bashir did not attend the current trial, and jurors were ordered not to speculate why, but it can be revealed that he absconded while on bail before the trial got under way. It can also be reported that Mohammed Shahzad, 44, Naheem Akram, 48, and Nisar Hussain, 41, were remanded in custody with their bail revoked in January before the jury was sworn in. Police received intelligence that the three Rochdale-born taxi drivers were planning to leave the UK and had already paid a deposit for their transport, the court heard. All three denied the accusation, but Judge Jonathan Seely said the court was not prepared to take a risk that they too would abscond. A seventh defendant, Pakistani-born Roheez Khan, 39, also featured in another previous Rochdale grooming trial in 2013 when he was one of five men convicted of sexually exploiting a 'profoundly vulnerable' 15-year-old girl in 2008 and 2009. Khan was jailed for six and a half years for engaging in sexual activity with a child and witness intimidation. The convictions are the latest under Operation Lytton, the most recent in a series of major investigations either launched, aborted or relaunched by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to deal with gangs acting 'in plain sight' decades earlier. Operation Augusta, an investigation into grooming in south Manchester by Asian men was launched in 2004-5 after the death of Victoria Agoglia, 15, on Sept 29 2003. She was in care but died after being injected with heroin by a man more than 30 years her senior, and had reported being raped. GMP identified 97 grooming suspects and 25 child victims, all under the care of Manchester city council, but at a joint police and council meeting in 2005, bosses decided to abruptly shut down the operation. Minutes from the meeting, taken by the police and the council, both disappeared. Two senior officers in the meeting were later promoted to chief constables, Parliament heard. More grooming gang offences in Rochdale were investigated in 2008, but the Crown Prosecution Service made the decision not to proceed to trial on the basis that it viewed the main victim as 'unreliable'. GMP later launched Operation Span, investigating offences between 2010 and 2012. It resulted in the conviction of nine men from Rochdale following a high-profile trial at Liverpool Crown Court ending in May 2012.
The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Grooming gang GUILTY of sexually assaulting two teens in Rochdale after plying them with booze in 5yr reign of terror
A GROOMING gang have been found guilty of sexually assaulting two teen girls in Rochdale in a five-year reign of terror. The seven men "passed" the victims around for sex and preyed on them in squalid flats and car parks in the town. They groomed the girls from the age of 13 and made them their "sex slaves" by plying them with gifts, including alcohol and drugs. The victims both had "deeply troubled home lives", which meant they were easy prey for the fiends. During a five year horror ordeal, the girls were expected to have sex "whenever and wherever" the defendants and other men wanted. As well as flats and car parks, the predators abused the teens on rancid mattresses, in cars, alleyways and disused warehouses. Mohammed Zahid, 64, Kasir Bashir, 50, Mushtaq Ahmed, 66, Roheez Khan, 39, Mohammed Shahzad, 43, Nisar Hussain, 43, and Naheem Akram, 48, were today convicted. Three of the abusers, Zahid, Ahmed and Bashir were born in Pakistan and worked as stallholders on Rochdale's indoor market. Father-of-three Zahid - known as Boss Man - gave free underwear from his lingerie stall to both victims. He was previously jailed for five years after he engaged in sexual activity in 2006 with a 15-year-old girl who he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school. Bashir did not attend the current trial after he absconded while on bail before the trial got under way. It can also be reported that Shahzad, Akram and Hussain were remanded in custody with their bail revoked in January before the jury was sworn in. Police received intelligence that the three Rochdale-born taxi drivers were planning to leave the UK and had already paid a deposit for their transport. While Pakistani-born Khan was one of five men convicted of sexually exploiting a "profoundly vulnerable" 15-year-old girl in 2008 and 2009. 3 3 is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video. Like us on Facebook at and follow us from our main Twitter account at @TheSun.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Seven men convicted of sexual exploitation of two teenage girls in Rochdale
Seven Asian men have been convicted of the sexual exploitation of two white teenage schoolgirls in Rochdale. The defendants preyed on the vulnerabilities of the victims to groom them as 'sex slaves' from the age of 13 on various dates in the Greater Manchester town between 2001 and 2006. Both girls had 'deeply troubled home lives' and were given drugs, alcohol, cigarette, places to stay and people to be with, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard. Soon after they were expected to have sex 'whenever and wherever' the defendants and other men wanted in filthy flats, on rancid mattresses, in cars, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses. Jurors deliberated for three weeks before delivering their unanimous guilty verdicts on Friday. Three of the abusers, Mohammed Zahid, 64, Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, and Kasir Bashir, 50, – all born in Pakistan – were stallholders on the town's indoor market. Father-of-three Zahid – known as Boss Man – gave free underwear from his lingerie stall to both complainants and also money, alcohol and food in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends. In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years in an earlier grooming gang case after he engaged in sexual activity in 2006 with a 15-year-old girl who he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school. Bashir did not attend the current trial as jurors were ordered not to speculate why but it can be revealed that he absconded while on bail before the trial got under way. It can also be reported that co-defendants Mohammed Shahzad, 44, Naheem Akram, 48, and Nisar Hussain, 41, were remanded in custody with their bail revoked in January before the jury was sworn in. Police received intelligence that the three Rochdale-born taxi drivers were planning to leave the UK and had already paid a deposit for their transport, the court heard. All three denied the accusation but Judge Jonathan Seely said the court was not prepared to take a risk that they too would abscond. A seventh defendant, Pakistani-born Roheez Khan, 39, also featured in another previous Rochdale grooming trial in 2013 when he was one of five men convicted of sexually exploiting a 'profoundly vulnerable' 15-year-old girl in 2008 and 2009. Khan was jailed for six-and-a-half years for engaging in sexual activity with a child and witness intimidation.
Scroll.in
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
How the India-Pakistan fighting affected children near the border and across the country
Over the past ten days, whenever Mushtaq Ahmed heard drones or helicopters nearing his home in Kashmir, around 100 km from the border with Pakistan, he immediately checked whether his children were watching cartoons on television. If they were not, he turned on the device. If they were already in front of it, he ensured that cartoons were playing and turned the volume up as high as possible so that they would not hear the machines. Sometimes he made them put on headphones and played the cartoon Doraemon for them on mobile phones. Ahmed's children are seven and 14 years old. When India and Pakistan began to attack each other on May 7, they grew anxious for their safety and would sometimes go into a panic. 'They were so anxious that they began to throw up,' Ahmed said. 'When they heard the helicopters and drones, they got very scared, so I tried to drown out the noise.' But Ahmed also ensured that the television was not playing a news channel, many of which broadcast shrill misinformation aimed at stoking fear and anger. 'Whatever they were showing on TV was very scary,' he said. The family tries to avoid discussing anything about the conflict inside the house. However, they realised it was impossible to avoid conversations on the subject. During one particularly tense day, Ahmed recounted, 'my son asked me what had happened and I just told him that there was nothing to worry'. He added, 'We are in the middle of a conflict zone, so we are kind of used to it but how do we explain it to our children? They ask me if they are going to die or if they will be killed, but I tell them that nothing of that sort will happen.' Drones, shelling As tensions between India and Pakistan escalated sharply after Operation Sindoor across India's northern and western frontier, parents like Ahmed struggled to explain the unfolding events to their terrified children and to try and reassure them that they were safe – even if they themselves were far from certain of it. The conflict represented the first time in recent decades that civilian populations in Indian towns and cities in the region had come under threat from Pakistani military action – attempted attacks reached as far into the Indian heartland as Sirsa in Haryana, around 260 km from New Delhi, where a Pakistani missile was shot down and crashed in a field. While adults may have had some understanding of the conflict, for children, the sounds of explosions around them and the sight of drones hovering in the air represented an incomprehensible encounter with the terrors of war. Adding to this, as some experts noted, in the current times, children's confusion and fear is heightened by the almost uncontrollable barrage of misinformation that they encounter daily. Abby Paathak, an educator, addressed this in an ebook that he wrote when the conflict first started, to help parents talk to children about military conflicts. Paathak wrote that children hear 'snippets on TV news, catch fragments of adult conversation, scroll past inflammatory social media posts and piece together narratives that often lack crucial context'. In the city of Jammu, Shreya Kudal's 14-year-old nephew refused to eat when the fighting first broke out. The Class 7 student was petrified that he and his family were going to be killed. 'We are only 15 km from the border,' Kudal said. 'There was a lot of shelling where we stayed and this scared not just the children in our house but all the children on the street.' She recounted the child's reaction the first time a blackout was imposed in their area. 'We did not know about it and someone knocked on our door and asked us to turn off the lights,' she recounted. 'My nephew became scared and started crying. Kudal ook him to the terrace and showed him that nothing was happening. 'Then we spent the rest of the night discussing what the conflict was about,' she said. Kudal said she did her best to offer the child an explanation that would not stoke anger or fear in him. 'I told him that he should not hate any country or its people because there were little children like him everywhere,' she said. Like Ahmed, Kudal also made sure that her nephew did not watch news channels, and the television was largely tuned in to cartoons. In the neighbouring state of Punjab, Heera Singh's two toddlers, who are around two and four, were too young to grasp the significance of the loud sounds outside their home in Mehdipur, which is just around 2 km from the border with Pakistan. But Singh worried that the drones would wake the children in the middle of the night. His older son had some questions about the situation. 'He asks if something happens to our house then where we would go?' the father said. 'But I told him not to worry because I don't want to cause him any unnecessary stress.' Further from the border Even parents further away from the border found themselves struggling to protect their children from the stress that came from the tide of news about the fighting. Vrinda Maheshwari, who lives in Delhi, recounted that she sought to limit her children's exposure to news, but that they came across other information at their school. 'Initially I didn't want to tell them about Pahalgam, but later I told them that whatever conflict was happening was very far from us and so they did not have to worry about it, ' she said. Maheshwari too does not watch the news in the house. 'We have not watched news at home for a while now, since it has just turned into people shouting at each other without any sort of reliability,' she said. 'This incident just highlighted this for us, as all we saw was bizarre scaremongering and no real information either.' One day, however, her six-year-old happened to enter his grandparents' room while a news channel was playing. She recounted that the child soon came running out of the room in panic. 'He completely freaked out and was terrified that something would happen to us,' Maheshwari said. 'I told him the missiles would not reach Delhi. But he was still very scared and did not leave my side, we had to reassure him repeatedly until he calmed down.' She added, 'I told him that not everything he sees on the news is real and now that he can read, he can read the newspapers and learn about it himself.' Maheshwari's children were also worried about family members in Jammu. 'They asked me how our relatives in Jammu will escape if missiles hit Jammu,' she said. Samyukta PC, a resident of Chennai, shared with Scroll a recorded a conversation she had with her nine-year-old daughter Yazhini about the conflict. Towards the end of the 25-minute conversation, the girl broke down in tears, worried for the safety of her family and friends. 'India and Pakistan are like brothers, I just want the two countries to talk it out and stop the war, I just want them to stop,' Yazhini said tearfully. 'I don't care if anything happens to me, I just want my family to be safe.' Samyukta comforted Yazhini, assuring her that the family would be safe. 'See, we have lived through two floods, one pandemic, so your family is going to work 100 times over to keep you safe,' Samyukta said. Calming children proved a challenge to parents because all over the country, many gathered half-formed facts about the war from young friends. Siri, a nine-year-old from Bengaluru, Karnataka, recounted that she had heard from her friends that 'Pakistan was planting bombs and if somebody walked on them, it would blast'. Her mother, Ramya K, explained that the extent of fear her daughter experienced was limited because her school was not in session at the time, and thus she was not regularly interacting with other children. 'I'm a little scared but not that scared,' Siri said. 'But many people are dying and that is very sad.' Professional advice and guides like Paathak's proved useful to many parents who sought to give their children some understanding of the situation. Paathak, who lives in Delhi, told Scroll that he was motivated to write the ebook after encountering two children play-acting as the recent conflict was playing out. The children were pretending that they were in a warzone – the enemy they had chosen was a man who had a tailoring and ironing shop on the road. 'The man was visibly Muslim and these children were acting like they had guns, they were pretending to hide, drawing lines around his shop,' Paathak said. 'The man looked uncomfortable but he continued to smile at the children' He added, 'The children had seemed to have overheard fragmented pieces of conversation between adults or seen things on the news, which had led them to behave that way.' Paathak's suggestions in the ebook included that parents use simple language to explain the conflict, strive to present balanced arguments, avoid inculcating judgemental attitudes towards other countries and acknowledge and accept the children's emotions. 'Without thoughtful guidance, these children risk adopting polarised viewpoints that perpetuate cycles of misunderstanding,' Paathak wrote in the ebook, which he posted on social media, and a PDF of which many parents circulated among each other. Though fighting has stopped, many parents, especially those close to the border, remain haunted by the memories of the conflict, and of the effects it had on their children. In Kashmir, Ahmed recounted that his children's faces would turn pale every time a mock drill was announced or a siren sounded. 'I could just see the colour drain from their faces,' he said. Ahmed still worries about what his children will do when he is at work. 'I think the schools should do counselling sessions to provide students with some kind of support, especially because we live in a conflict zone,' he said. 'I worry that they won't know what to do in case there is some kind of attack when I'm at work.'
