Sheffield Crown Court has heard that one of the Rotherham abuse trial defendants was a police cadet at the time of his alleged child sexual exploitation offences.

The jury at the Rotherham abuse trial was told that in the 1990s Sajid Bostan, now a 38 year old taxi driver, had been a teenage police cadet with ambitions to join the force. He said he acted as the “extra eyes and ears” of the police, and also patrolled Rotherham town centre with officers.

The Sheffield Telegraph reports he was doing that at the time of the three rapes, two counts of aiding and abetting rape, one indecent assault and one other serious sexual assault of which he now stands accused.

He told the court he resigned voluntarily from the police cadets in 1996 after he was charged with two counts of affray — offences of which he was subsequently found guilty, but for which he was given a discharge.

According to the prosecution case, Mr. Bostan worked “as a team” with fellow defendant Arshid Hussain, 40, in sexually abusing an underage girl who lived in care. It is also alleged that they raped the girl — now a 36 year old woman known at trial as Girl B — at the Prince of Wales pub. The alleged victim believes her child was conceived as a result of that assault, but Mr. Bostan said he has never been there and offered DNA samples to prove her child was not his when he was arrested in March 2015.

Mr. Bostan was also allegedly present when Girl B was forced into performing a sex act on his brother and co-defendant Majid Bostan, who denies the charge of indecent assault but will not be giving evidence in his defence.

Sajid Bostan did have a relationship with Girl B, but he says his “fling” was later. He had been working at Rotherham’s Zone nightclub when he met her out on a night out with friends in 2000. Already married and with children he began an affair with her but said she became “possessive” and wanted him to leave his wife, so he called it off.

Prosecution barrister Michelle Colborne QC said Girl B had been taking heroin at the time she met Mr. Bostan at the Zone, and asked whether he thought she was “vulnerable”. Although she was “bubbly”, he said he had not been aware she was on drugs. He told the court:

“I loved her, I cared about her – that is the God’s honest truth. We were both in love with each other.”

Ms. Colborne alleged Mr. Bostan knew of Girl B’s background of living in children’s homes before their later relationship, suggesting they never discussed her past because he already “knew everything about it”. He denied the allegation.

Ms. Colborne pushed further, saying he was “well-brought up” and a “good boy” who attended his mosque and got married, adding:

“You did the right thing, did as you were told. Why in your life of toeing the line, would you risk everything for that woman?

“You weren’t risking anything going back to what you already knew.”

Mr. Bostan and his fellow defendants Arshid Hussain, Karen MacGregor, Qurban Ali, Majid Bostan, Basharat Hussain and Shelley Davies all deny their part in historic child sexual exploitation crimes relating to a Rotherham grooming gang.

The trial continues.