Seven members of the latest Rochdale Asian grooming gang have been convicted of exploiting two young girls as ‘sex slaves’.
The gang preyed on the vulnerabilities of the victims to groom them from the age of 13 over a five-year-long campaign of abuse 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.
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 Rochdale’s indoor market.
The gang’s depraved ringleader Zahid was even known as ‘Knickerman’ because of his underwear stall at the centuries-old trading hub.
The pot-bellied, wispy-haired father-of-three exploited his products’ appeal to young girls to lure in vulnerable youngsters who were then subjected to ‘years of misery’.
Seven members of the latest Rochdale Asian grooming gang have been convicted of exploiting two young girls as ‘sex slaves’. Mohammed Zahid, 64, is seen in a police interview
Mohammed Zahid, 64, who was the gang’s ringleader and had a stall at Rochdale’s indoor market
Top row, left to right: Kasir Bashir, Mohammed Shahzad; middle row, left to right: Mushtaq Ahmed, Roheez Khan; bottom row, left to right: Naheem Akram, Nisar Hussain
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.
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.
Today’s verdicts come as:
- One of the defendants is on the run and absconded before the current trial got underway
- Police received intelligence the three Rochdale-born taxi drivers were planning to leave the UK and were consequently denied bail
- The Conservatives renewed their call for a national statutory inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal
Mohammed Zahid (left) is facing a facing lengthy jail sentences after being convicted of grooming young girls in Rochdale
Rochdale’s market has served the Greater Manchester town since 1251 – but two perverted traders used their stalls to groom and exploit young girls, the trial heard (stock image)
Gang member and former shopkeeper Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, arriving at court during his trial
Starting when they were aged just 13, two terrified girls were ‘passed around’ for sex between fellow traders and taxi drivers – all from Rochdale’s Pakistani community – between 2001 and 2006.
They would then be callously ‘discarded’, jurors in a ten-week trial heard.
Following a string of successful prosecutions which made the Greater Manchester town grimly synonymous with the scourge of grooming gangs, the victims – now in their 30s – decided to come forward to seek justice over their ordeals.
In harrowing detail, one described her terror as she was raped by ‘massive’ and ‘aggressive’ paedophile.
Heartbreakingly it also heard how the girl – at the time living in a children’s home – was scandalously dismissed by social workers as having been ‘prostituting’ herself from the age of ten.
As the pair’s abusers now face lengthy prison terms, it can be revealed that two – including Zahid, who also used the nickname ‘Bossman’ – have already spent time behind bars over Rochdale child sex rings.
Jurors also weren’t told that the three British-born members of the gang were locked up partway through the trial following ‘intelligence’ that they planned to flee to Pakistan.
A fourth skipped bail as the case got underway and was tried in his absence – his whereabouts are unknown.
Mushtaq Ahmed enabled fellow gang members to use the cellar of his clothing shop in Rochdale to abuse girls
They are the first Asian grooming gang to be brought to justice since Labour faced accusations of a cover-up for resisting calls for a public inquiry into how a generation of girls were betrayed by police and social services.
And today the Conservatives renewed their calls for the national inquiry to take place.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘The crimes committed by these men are sickening. Their victims were raped and abused for years, and the youngest was just 13 years old.
‘It should not have taken 20 years to get these convictions.
‘Not a single person in authority has ever been held to account for covering up crimes like these, and for ignoring the victims.
‘It’s time for a national statutory inquiry to get to the truth about the cover ups. I will push this to a vote in Parliament next Wednesday – but so far Labour has refused to have one, which simply continues the cover up. If they vote against a proper inquiry next week, it will be a day of shame for Labour.’
According to one estimate, upwards of 250,000 girls have been attacked repeatedly by street gangs in 50 British towns and cities over the past 40 years.
Today’s convictions represent the eighth time that a group of men of mainly Pakistani heritage have been convicted of grooming girls for sex in Rochdale in the early 2000s.
The court previously heard that ‘if a man wanted sex with a young girl, he would pay Zahid a modest sum of money and a girl would be supplied’.
‘That’s how it worked in Rochdale,’ prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC added.
Girls would meet up with groups of Asian men in parks, woods, on the moors and at a snooker hall.
They would be given alcohol, cigarettes and drugs and driven around and taken to flats and houses, with the abuse also taking place in cars, alleyways or disused warehouses
Pakistan-born Zahid has previously been jailed for sexual activity with a child over a previous Rochdale grooming case – jurors in the latest trial were told that the 64-year-old had previously been to prison ‘for sexual offending’.
Zahid cynically targeted youngsters shopping for underwear, identifying those with troubled backgrounds living in children’s homes or foster care.
Under the guise of ‘work experience’, he encouraged two 13-year-olds to hang around his stall at Rochdale’s indoor market and that run by another perverted trader, Kasir Bashir.
Bashir skipped bail at the outset of his trial but the case proceeded in his absence.
Rochdale is now not synonymous with the great achievements of the Industrial Revolution but with what has become known as Asian grooming gangs, the men’s trial heard
Once trading had finished for the day, the grotesque pair would take the stock to a nearby shop, Maria Fashions, then run by another paedophile, co-defendant Mushtaq Ahmed.
Already duped by Zahid’s superficially friendly manner and the offer of small amounts of cash or free underwear, the girls would naively agree to enter the store’s dingy cellar.
Here they would strip off and wait to be joined by men who raped and sexually assaulted them on a filthy mattress.
Trapped by an uncaring system which treated underage abuse victims as ‘prostitutes’, it was the start of a nightmarish descent into being used as ‘sex slaves’.
Afterwards they would be ‘discarded… like rubbish’, jurors were told.
Mr Scamardella told jurors that between 2001 and 2006, both victims’ lives were ‘destroyed by these men and others like them’.
‘They both endured years of misery being sexually abused by almost every man with which they came into contact.’
He added that the abuse had taken place ‘under the noses of social workers and others who should have done far more to protect them’.
Bashir’s whereabouts are unknown – he answered bail in the run-up to the men’s trial, but vanished when it started back in January.
Like Zahid and former shopkeeper Ahmed he was born in Pakistan, as was fellow gang member Roheez Khan.
The other three convicted today – Mohammed Shazad, Nisar Hussain and Naheem Akram – were all born in Rochdale but were remanded in custody partway through following ‘intelligence’ that they planned to flee to Pakistan.
An eighth man was formally found not guilty on all counts partway through the trial after the prosecution said there was no longer ‘a realistic prospect of conviction’.
Arfan Khan, 40, from Rochdale, had been accused of four sex offences, including two counts of rape.
All seven of those convicted today are British citizens – however any with dual nationality could potentially face proceedings to strip them of their UK passports and deport them to Pakistan when they are released from prison.
Mohammed Zahid, 64
Mohammed Zahid, 64
Known as ‘Bossman’ to his fellow paedophiles, with his ‘pot belly and wispy hair’, the apparently unthreatening Zahid was mockingly dubbed ‘Knickerman’ by the girls whose abuse he masterminded.
Ringleader of the latest grooming gang to face justice, Pakistan-born Zahid ran an underwear stall on Rochdale market in the early 2000s.
Even experienced detectives were shocked at uncovering the extent of his depravity, branding the married father-of-three ‘manipulative, controlling and clearly dangerous’.
Then in his 40s, Zahid used it to target vulnerable girls as young as 13 – earning their trust by feigning sympathy for the tough start to life they had endured.
One of the victims described him as coming across ‘dead soft-natured’ and ‘like he actually gave a c**p’ – something she had encountered all too rarely from adults in her life.
Having groomed them, Zahid would offer the girls to fellow paedophiles to sexually abuse in exchange for money.
Zahid ‘led the way in Rochdale in child sexual exploitation’, jurors were told.
‘If a man wanted sex with a young girl, he would pay Zahid a modest sum of money and a girl would be supplied,’ Rossano Scamardella KC said.
He was the only gang member accused of sexually assaulting both victims in the current trial.
Zahid was previously jailed for sexual activity with a child over an earlier Rochdale grooming trial.
Kasir Bashir, 50
Kasir Bashir, 50
A second trader at Rochdale Market, the ‘massive’ and ‘aggressive’ paedophile ran a stall selling shoes and socks.
Bashir helped Zahid groom Girl B before both abused her in the cellar beneath a nearby shop where they stored their wares overnight.
Girl B became pregnant by Bashir when she was just 14 and he was 26.
In a harrowing account, Girl B recalled being raped by a huge, bushy-haired man with an enormous stomach, massive nose and big lips when she was 13.
‘He just looks aggressive,’ she told a detective.
‘He didn’t have a soft face. It was just like stern. With him I felt like it wasn’t right’.
Girl B added: ‘He was heavy. I can literally feel him on top of me, even now.
‘I can see him on top of me. I can see him in the corner of the room. I remember it hurting.
‘He was big and so I didn’t want to do it. He was the one I didn’t want to be near.’
Pakistan-born Bashir answered bail in the run-up to the men’s trial but vanished when it started back in January.
He was tried in his absence and branded ‘a liar’ by prosecutors.
Mushtaq Ahmed, 67
Mushtaq Ahmed, 67
Ran clothing store Maria Fashion where his friends, perverted market traders Zahid and Bashir, stored their produce overnight.
Helped sexually abuse terrified girls on a dirty mattress in the cellar beneath the store, now under new ownership.
Prosecutors said Pakistan-born Ahmed was ‘cunning and manipulative’ and had told ‘lie after lie after lie’ when he reality he ‘liked to have sex with children’.
One of only two members of the gang to give evidence in their defence, Ahmed said he came to Britain in 1988.
He previously ran market stalls in Rochdale, Oldham and Bradford.
Ahmed was arrested after victim Girl B spotted him selling fruit and vegetables out of a van near a school.
Roheez Khan, 39
Roheez Khan, 39
Nicknamed ‘Cockeyed Taz’ due to having a lazy eye, he arrived from Pakistan in 2005 and ‘wasted no time’ in finding girls to abuse, the trial heard.
Khan – who became part of the gang due to having a friend who worked for a taxi firm – was jailed for the abuse of a 15-year-old girl in 2013 in an unrelated case.
Girl A said she regularly had sex with Khan after meeting up while still in her school uniform.
‘Like his friend Zahid, he couldn’t help himself,’ Mr Scamardella said.
Mohammed Shahzad, 44
Mohammed Shahzad, 44
Nicknamed ‘Zero’, the taxi driver met Girl A when she was 13 and tricked her into believing he was ‘an actual friend’.
But after swapping phone numbers, he went onto have sex with her ‘every week’, the trial heard.
One of three gang members born in Rochdale, Shahzad was remanded in custody partway through following ‘intelligence’ he planned to flee to Pakistan.
Nisar Hussain, 41
Nisar Hussain, 41
Born in Rochdale, he was remanded in custody partway through following ‘intelligence’ he planned to flee to Pakistan.
Another taxi driver and known as Niss, he filmed Girl A being sexually abused after being plied with drugs by co-defendant Shahzad.
Naheem Akram, 48
Naheem Akram, 48
Another taxi driver, known to the victim as ‘Lala’, he met Girl A when co-defendant Shazad invited her to a ‘sesh’ and gave her Ecstasy.
Hussain filmed her being sexually abused, the trial heard.
Shahzad then blackmailed her by saying he would circulate the footage unless she had sex with him and Akram, who she branded ‘horrible’.
She complied, but after raping her they cruelly shared the humiliating clip anyway, she said.
Following his arrest, Akram was caught on CCTV lashing out at co-accused Nisar Hussain and branding him a ‘grass’ after both were interviewed at Bury police station in February 2017.
Born in Rochdale, Akram was remanded in custody partway through following ‘intelligence’ he planned to flee to Pakistan.
