Banaras Hussain, Mohammed Akram, and Talish Mahmood Ahmed have been convicted of raping a vulnerable schoolgirl from the age of 13 in Huddersfield, England.
The girl, daughter of an abusive single mother as well as a bullying victim, was preyed on from 1995 to 1998, with Hussain, a married man, having initiated the abuse.
The victim was plied with alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs including amphetamines by the gang, according to a YorkshireLive court report, and raped in grubby flats, a primary school playground, woods, and even her own bedroom after one of the abusers, Mohammed Akram, climbed up her drainpipe in secret.
“More and more men came onto the scene and the group got bigger and bigger – such that she can’t even remember them all now,” prosecutor Kate Batty said of the gang’s victim, telling the jury how “Routine to her became the day in, day out events of being touched or groped or having sex on grubby mattresses on the floors of flats and houses that she found herself in.”
The final straw came when she had her drink spiked, was driven to a secluded area, raped, and then “dumped, thrown out of the taxi at the end of her street with her knickers and trousers round by her ankles,” at which point she reported her abusers to the police — although it would be years before effective action was taken.
Banaras Hussain, of Church Street in Paddock, was found guilty of two counts of rape, Mohammed Akram, of Moorbottom Road in Thornton Lodge, was convicted of two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault, and Talish Mahmood Ahmed, of Rashcliffe Hill Road in Lockwood, was convicted of one count of rape.
A fourth man, 41-year-old Mohammed Khalil of Larch Road, Paddock, was acquitted of one count of indecent assault.
As has often been the case with historic rape gang offences involving men of South Asian heritage, the victim was “let down” by the police.
“She gave a statement to the police and was medically examined. Despite that, no action was ever taken,” the prosecutor recalled.
“It’s not entirely clear why but what we do know is that things have come a long way since the late 1990s in terms of our understanding of sexual offending,” she added — as if there was ever a time when law enforcement would not have understood that sexual activity under-16s is criminal.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.