London: The UK court has sentenced a combined 101 years prison time to 6 British men of Pakistani origin for sexually abusing young girls in England’s Rotherham town this Friday.
The accused identified as Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, 37, Asif Ali, 33, Tanweer Ali, 37, Salah Ahmed El-Hakam, 39, Nabeel Kurshid, 35, Iqlak Yousaf, 34, and a seventh person had been convicted by the Sheffield Crown Court last month.
The charges leveled against the convicts are sexual abuse against multiple victims as young as 13. Five young girls were passed around to be sexually abused by multiple offenders by these convicts, PTI reports.
One of the victims in the case told the trial she was forced to have sex with “at least 100 Asian men” by the time she turned 16, while another victim described being gang-raped in a forest.
“Each of the complainants, in this case, were groomed, coerced and intimidated. Each of them was groomed. Each of you, groomed. You can have been in no doubt that the complainants were vulnerable in the extreme,” Judge Sarah Wright said during sentencing on Friday.
The UK National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood which deals with child sexual exploitation in Rotherham has so far identified more than 1,500 victims.
The NCA in its operation found that main accused in the case is Akhtar the “ringleader” who used to befriend young girls before introducing them to his friends.
They would later drug these young girls to the limit where they could no longer remember what was going around them. The men also threatened the girls with violence or being transported and abandoned in an unfamiliar location if they didn’t comply with the sexual demands.
Sentencing ‘ringleader’ Akhtar to prison time of 23 years, Judge Wright accused him of “cynical manipulation and exploitation” of the girls.
She added, “They (victims) continue to suffer considerable trauma and will continue to suffer throughout their lives as a result of your actions.”
While the other five men, Kurshid, Yousaf, Tanweer Ali, El-Hakam and Asif Ali, were sentenced to 19 years, 20 years, 14 years, 15 years and 10 years, respectively. The seventh man who was not named due to legal reasons will be sentenced later.
Operation Stovewood Senior Investigating Officer Paul Williamson said, “The men who have been sentenced today preyed on vulnerable young girls for their own satisfaction. They used violence and intimidation and believed they were untouchable by law enforcement.”
“Today, as they begin serving their sentences, I want to reassure the victims and survivors across Rotherham that the NCA and our partners are committed to bringing child sexual offenders to justice”.
Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) officer Mike Duffy said, “These men deliberately preyed on young, vulnerable teenagers, grooming and exploiting them. They denied the abuse but evidence put forward by the CPS, including the victims’ accounts of the incidents, resulted in the jury finding them guilty. I would like to thank the victims who came forward and bravely supported this prosecution”.
The Operation Stovewood is currently investigating 22 separate cases with 153 suspects identified and 300 complainants engaging with police officers.