Rotherham child sex abuse probe finds seven men guilty of exploiting vulnerable teens
A GANG of seven men has been found guilty of sexually exploiting teenage girls in Rotherham as part of a £90million abuse investigation.
One of the complainants told a trial at Sheffield Crown Court how she had sex with "at least 100 Asian men" by the time she was 16 and another described how she was gang-raped in a forest and threatened with being abandoned there.
Vulnerable girls were plied with alcohol and drugs before being passed around between men in the town.
The girls "believed sex of some kind or other was a necessary price for friendship”, Michelle Colborne QC, prosecuting, said.
She told Sheffield Crown Court: "When they were in their teens, they were targeted, sexualised and, in some instances, subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature at the hands of these men who sit in the dock."
“None of them had the maturity to understand that they were being groomed and exploited."
The victims, now aged in their thirties, were "lured by the excitement of friendship with older Asian youths" but now “suffer the emotional effects of that abuse to this day”, Ms Colbourne said.
They thought they were living the high life
The prosecutor said: "The girls were enthralled by older, Asian men, men who had cars and seemed exciting to them.
"They thought they were living the high life."
Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, 37, Nabeel Kurshid, 35, Iqlak Yousaf, 34, Tanweer Ali, 37, Salah Ahmed El-Hakam, 39, Asif Ali, 33, and a seventh defendant who cannot be identified, were convicted after an eight week trial.
The court heard how a girl was bitten and raped by two men in Sherwood Forest while “high as a kite” on drugs.
The case is the first major prosecution arising out of Operation Stovewood, the National Crime Agency's (NCA) inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation in the South Yorkshire town which has identified more than 1,500 victims.
The operation was set up in the wake of the 2014 Jay Report which laid bare the shocking scale of exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 and failure of police and social services to intervene.
The investigation, which has 250 members of staff and an annual budget that all soon reach £15milion a year, is set to cost more than £90million by 2024.
Police have been given that deadline, though few people think it will be completed by then.
There are currently 22 live investigations ongoing.
All seven men will be sentenced on November 16. They were remanded in custody.
Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, 37, of Godstone Road, Rotherham, was found guilty of one rape, one charge of aiding and abetting rape, three indecent assaults, one charge of procuring a girl under 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse with another and one sexual assault.
Nabeel Kurshid, 35, of Weetwood Road, Rotherham, was found guilty of two rapes and one indecent assault.
Iqlak Yousaf, 34, of Tooker Road, Rotherham, was found guilty of two rapes and two indecent assaults.
Tanweer Ali, 37, of Godstone Road, Rotherham, was found guilty of two rapes, two indecent assaults and one charge of false imprisonment.
Salah Ahmed El-Hakam, 39, of Tudor Close, Sheffield, was found guilty of one rape.
Asif Ali, 33, of Clough Road, Rotherham, was found guilty of two indecent assaults.
A seventh defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of two rapes.
Ajmal Rafiq, 39, of Warwick Street, Rotherham, was acquitted of all charges.