The defence lawyer for a Rotherham man on trial for sexually abusing two underage girls claimed that one alleged victim “made up” the assault claim to “carry on the campaign in relation to Muslims”.
Takeaway and taxi driver Khurram Javed, 35, is on trial for twice sexually assaulting ‘Girl A’ between 2008 and 2009 when she was 12 to 13 years old and of sexually assaulting and raping ‘Girl B’ on March 5th, 2014, reports the Sheffield Star.
During the trial in relation to the case of Girl A on Tuesday, the alleged victim told Sheffield Crown Court that claims she had fabricated the abuse reports were “totally untrue”.
The woman, who cannot be named, said she was between 12 and 13 when Javed, who was a delivery driver for Sizzling Wok takeaway, twice sexually abused her in an alleyway.
Defence barrister Patrick Cassidy said to Girl A: “I’m suggesting that in this particular case you have not told the truth about what happened in 2008.
“And that your account is made up in part to gain further compensation and in part to carry on the campaign in relation to Muslims.”
The court had heard that Girl A had attended speeches about “Muslim grooming” organised by the English Defence League – which was founded by now-citizen journalist Tommy Robinson to highlight Muslim grooming gangs in his hometown of Luton, Bedfordshire – but she maintained that she had not been involved with the group for over a year.
The crimes were alleged to have taken place in Rotherham – a city which was subject to the “biggest child protection scandal in UK history” where gangs of Muslim men groomed and sexually abused 1,400 mainly white girls from the 1980s to the 2010s.
The subsequent 2014 Jay inquiry found that victims often had unstable home lives and were in care, with police labelling victims “undesirables” or being unwilling to pursue cases for fear of being labelled racist.
Victims were often considered complicit in their abuse with survivors telling media after the scandal broke that authorities in Rotherham did nothing to support them, with one woman saying she was made to feel she were “racist” and was “told not to comment on the ethnicity of the perpetrators”.
Two survivors spoke to Channel 4 in 2017 to say that despite investigations, arrests, and media prominence, abuse by grooming gangs against young girls was still ongoing in Rotherham.
Javed is also on trial accused of sexually assaulting and raping Girl B.
Sheffield Crown Court heard on Monday that on March 5th, 2014, the accused allegedly collected teenage Girl B from her supported living accommodation in his taxi.
On March 5th, 2014, he is alleged to have taken her to his friend’s flat above a shop in Wakefield, plied her with alcohol, and raped her before returning her to Rotherham.
Girl B reported the rape to police in 2014 but the case was dropped after the accused told police that he had not assaulted her and that Girl B wanted to be his girlfriend but she was too young for him.
The trial continues.
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