Seven men of Pakistani heritage from South Yorkshire were found guilty of sexual offences against underage girls in the latest abuse trial following the inquiry into the Rotherham grooming gang scandal.
Salah Ahmed El-Hakam, 39, Asif Ali, 33, Tanweer Ali, 37, Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, 37, Nabeel Kurshid, 35, Iqlak Yousaf, 34, and a seventh man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were convicted on Monday of grooming and sexually abusing five underage girls between 1998 and 2005, reports the BBC.
An eighth man, Ajmal Rafiq, 39, was found not guilty of indecent assault and false imprisonment.
During the trial, the victims revealed the extent of the abuse, with one survivor telling the court that she had been raped by “at least 100 Asian men” by the age of 16.
Another had told the jury she had been bitten and raped in Sherwood Forest by two men after they fed her drugs.
One girl had fallen pregnant and had an abortion by the age of 14, while another had given birth by the age of 15, her son fathered by her abuser.
The prosecutor had told the jury, during the eight-week trial, that the gang had targetted the five girls because they “were easy targets” from broken homes who “wanted to be loved” and were “lured by the excitement of friendship with older Asian youths”.
The jury also heard that the victims were “frequently in cars [with their rapists] stopped by the police but this did not deter the abusers”.
The convictions are the latest to follow on from the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) Operation Stovewood — the country’s largest law enforcement investigation into grooming gang-based child sexual exploitation (CSE).
Operation Stovewood came about as a result of the 2014 Jay Report which found that 1,400 — estimates revised to up to 1,510 last year — mainly white, working-class girls had been groomed and raped by gangs of mostly Pakistani-origin Muslim men between 1997 and 2013. The report also exposed the culture in police and social services of political correctness and of not believing victims that allowed the abuse to go on for so long.
This is just the latest conviction of a Pakistani-heritage grooming gang from Rotherham, with another recent trial ending in the sentencing of 20 abusers in Huddersfield.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid — himself of Muslim, Pakistani heritage — was criticised by leftists for his reaction to the conviction of the Huddersfield rape gang when he condemned them as “sick Asian paedophiles”.
In an interview with The Times on Saturday, Mr Javid said that Pakistani-heritage child gang rapists had “disgraced” his ethnic heritage, admitting that “[there] must be some cultural connection, some reason”.
In July, the Home Secretary ordered research into the ethnic and cultural component of grooming gangs and has vowed to fight “uncivilised” forced marriage in the UK.
The full details of the latest convictions are as follows:
Mohammed Imran Akhtar (37), of Rotherham, was found guilty of one count of rape, three counts of indecent assault, sexual assault, procuring a girl to have unlawful sex with another, aiding and abetting Tanweer Ali to commit rape.
Asif Ali (33), of Rotherham, was acquitted of one count of indecent assault and found guilty of two counts of indecent assault.
Tanweer Ali (37), of Rotherham, was found guilty of two counts of rape, two counts of indecent assault, and one count of false imprisonment.
Salah El-Hakam (39), of Sheffield, was found guilty of one count of rape.
Nabeel Kurshid (35), of Rotherham, was found guilty of two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault.
Iqlak Yousaf (34), of Rotherham, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault and two counts of rape.
One man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was acquitted of abducting a child and rape but found guilty of two counts of rape.
The seven are due to be sentenced November 16th.
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