Seven individuals who sexually assaulted and raped two young girls in northern England were sentenced to prison on Wednesday, marking the latest incident linked to so-called “grooming gangs” in the United Kingdom.
A group of individuals received a combined sentence of 174 years in prison for numerous sexual offenses committed against two teenage girls in Rochdale between 2001 and 2006, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The abuse began when each girl was 13 years old.
Both victims came from disadvantaged backgrounds and had contact with social services, as stated by prosecutors. One girl was under the care system.
They were given gifts and money, and frequently given alcohol or drugs prior to being attacked or raped, according to officials.
In the Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, the leader of the gang — Mohammed Zahid, 64 — received a 35-year prison sentence.
The remaining six individuals — Mushtaq Ahmed, 66, Kasir Bashir, 50, Roheez Khan, 39, Mohammed Shahzad, 43, Nisar Hussain, 41, and Naheem Akram, 48 — received prison terms varying from 12 to 39 years.
Seven men all rejected the accusations but were found guilty by consensus.
“These seven individuals exploited weakness for their own sick sexual pleasure,” stated Detective Chief Inspector Guy Laycock, the lead investigator in the case.
“The men mistreated, humiliated, and then abandoned the victims when they were still children. This terrible abuse had no boundaries, even though they denied it during the long investigation and court proceedings,” he added.
Ethnicity in the spotlight
The long-standing problem of grooming gangs — where hundreds of vulnerable young women and girls were sexually abused by men — gained widespread public awareness in the early 2010s in the UK.
It became clear that numerous gangs had been partially recognized by local authorities for a while prior to their members being charged with various crimes. Many men from different towns have been arrested, prosecuted, and sent to prison for their involvement.
However, the matter resurfaced on the political agenda at the beginning of the year whenElon Musk shared a number of provocative messages on social media.
His involvement followed the revelation that the UK’s safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, had turned down a proposal for a government-led investigation, opting instead for a local commission.
In June, the UK government announced that law enforcement officials in England and Wales will be mandated to gather information on ethnicity and nationality in instances of child sexual abuse and exploitation, following a review that indicated the matter had been “avoided.”
A 2014 review suggested that approximately 1,400 children experienced sexual exploitation in Rotherham from 1997 to 2013, mainly by men of Pakistani origin.
The report highlights shortcomings by the authorities and the police, and also mentions local authority officials expressing their “anxiety” about determining the “ethnic background of offenders due to concerns about being labeled as racist.”
