Rotherham grooming ring targeted teenagers over three decades, court told
Five men and two women face 51 counts of alleged sex crimes against 12 girls stretching back to 1987
Five men and two women targeted, sexualised and subjected teenage girls to degrading acts including prostitution and forced sex as part of a major grooming ring in Rotherham uncovered by police, a court has heard.
The seven defendants are facing 51 counts of alleged historical sex crimes stretching back almost 30 years against the girls, one under 14 years of age. In an 18-page indictment, the jury learned that the first alleged offence took place in 1987 with the remainder all taking place between 1990 and 2003.
Prosecutor Michelle Colborne, QC, said the seven targeted 12 girls, all local and some of them in care. “Some had unsettled home lives, had suffered previous ill treatment or abuse and some who were in local authority care when they were befriended by and subsequently groomed by the defendants,” she said, opening the case in Sheffield crown court.
Rotherham sex abuse trial: Teenage girls ‘targeted’
Teenage girls in Rotherham were “targeted” and “subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature”, a jury has been told.
Five men and two women face more than 60 charges including rape and false imprisonment over a 10-year period.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Michelle Colborne QC told Sheffield Crown Court: “It is alleged that in differing ways they facilitated the sexual abuse of teenage girls.”
The seven defendants deny all charges.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-35061430
Opening of Rotherham CSE trial delayed
THE Rotherham child sexual exploitation (CSE) scandal is due to finally be opened today after being delayed.
The jury was sworn in on Tuesday and the prosecution was due to open the case this morning at Sheffield Crown Court.
Read on… http://www.rotherhamadvertiser.co.uk/news/100877/opening-of-rotherham-cse-trial-delayed.aspx
and… http://www.thestar.co.uk/live/daily?1245218
Those charges in full:
- Arshid Hussain, 40, of High Street, East Cowick, Goole, denies one count of conspiracy to rape, 11 indecent assaults, five rapes, one other serious sexual assault, one count of procuring a girl under 21 to have unlawful sex with another, one count of false imprisonment, two counts of procuring a woman under 21 to become a common prostitute, one count of attempting to procure a girl under 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse, two counts of abducting a 15-year-old girl, one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, two counts of aiding and abetting rape and one of aiding and abetting another serious sexual assault.
- Qurban Ali, 53, of Clough Road, Masborough, Rotherham, denies one count each of indecent assault, rape, procuring a girl under 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse with another and conspiracy to rape.
- Majid Bostan, 37, of Ledsham Road, Broom, Rotherham, denies one indecent assault.
- Sajid Bostan, 38, of Broom Avenue, Broom, Rotherham, denies three rapes, two counts of aiding and abetting rape, one indecent assault and one other serious sexual assault.
- Basharat Hussain, 39, of no fixed abode, denies one rape, five indecent assaults, one count of procuring a girl under 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse with another, false imprisonment, three counts of indecency with a child, one count of procuring a woman under 21 to become a common prostitute, two assaults occasioning actual bodily harm and one count of making threats to kill.
- Karen MacGregor, 58, of Barnsley Road, Wath, South Yorkshire, and Rotherham, denies one count of conspiracy to procure a woman under 21 to become a common prostitute, false imprisonment and and two counts of conspiracy to rape.
- Shelley Davies, 40, of Wainwright Road, Kimberworth Park, Rotherham, denies one count of conspiracy to procure a woman under 21 to become a common prostitute, false imprisonment and conspiracy to rape.
Rotherham Politics 
Yet a Muslim schoolboy is accused of being a terrorist and it is on the front page of the Times and dealt with a lot more quickly. If only these girls had received as much attention 30 years ago.
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Well the Guardian would doubtless like to play this as a ring in the singular. But hopefully people across the country won’t be fobbed off and buy into that
There are apparently 300 suspects
“The Jay Report found children as young as 11 were sexually exploited by gangs of men, mainly of Pakistani origin”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-33256405
Clearly there was wide ranging “community” involvement.
Andrew Norfolk of course reported that one victim had the numbers of 177 men on her phone, including an “Asian” police officer
Norfolk’s researches led him to the conclusion that
“that so often this is a normalised group activity-not among a major criminal gang, but among friends, work colleagues and relatives-that does not have the same sense of shame attached to it as would be the case for your typical white offender, who works alone because if he told too many people, somebody would report him.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/uc182-vii/uc18201.htm
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Which is why, things are about to come out which will take this whole scandal to a new dimension. Always thought that this abuse happen earlier than 1997, convient cut off point for certain vested interests.
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1997 gets used as as the start point because that was the first trial identified by Andrew Norfolk, briefly referred to in this Mail piece, with which he established a pattern
“NOVEMBER 1997: LEEDS TAXI DRIVERS
Mohammed Naim Rashid, 21, was jailed for seven years and Abid Hussain Sadique, 21, for four by Leeds Crown Court in November 1997.
There were 20 victims, some as young as 12, who had been groomed for sex”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344218/Asian-sex-gangs-Culture-silence-allows-grooming-white-girls-fear-racist.html#ixzz3u7dgEkHA
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True there was evidence of such grooming before
“During the 1990s Bradford saw hundreds of young girls, some as young as 11, pimped out by older men who kept them in squalid bedsits.”
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/sep/27/rochdale-child-sex-abuse-ring-bradford-barnado-s
but thanks to West Yorkshire Police and the local authorities none of this resulted in prosecutions, despite the best efforts of Ann Cryer a lone voice crying in the wilderness of political correctness and the bloc vote.
There was a grooming related prosecution in 1989 in which the UK “justice” system did a blame the victims routine, but it was indirect
“The Independent, June 24 1989, Saturday
Sikh girls ‘used as sex slaves’
GANGS OF Muslim men toured daytime discotheques kidnapping Sikh girls to use as sex slaves, a court was told yesterday.
The jury at the trial of 13 Sikh men at Birmingham Crown Court heard claims that one gang forced girls into prostitution and blackmailed their parents.
The Sikhs were said to be members of the Shere Punjab, a vigilante gang, who were arrested – armed with sticks and bottles – while on their way to confront the rival Muslim gang, the Aston Panthers, in Handsworth, Birmingham, last June.
Gurmek Singh Chahal, 20, told the court the Panthers used Indian girls for sex and prostitution. ‘The Shere Punjab was formed to stop the intimidation of our society by the Muslim society.’
Chahal and two other men were each given a two-year conditional discharge for using threatening behaviour. Similar sentences had earlier been passed on eight others who had pleaded guilty. Another two were cleared.”
So there is a legitimate reason, IMO, for taking 97 as the start point
“convient cut off point for certain vested interests.”
what are these vested interests?
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Parsonage
Lisa O’Carroll is a good journalist. She has no agenda, unlike for instance Andrew Gilligan.
Any thoughts on why the Times is not covering this court case?
This is the most recent Andrew Norfolk/ Billy Kember piece http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4581867.ece .
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The Times is covering the Rotherham trial, it was front page news yesterday
It’s true that the Times went off the boil with their grooming gang campaign, that was apparent some time ago – I do not know why; it remains the case that only the surface has been excavated..
My aversion to the Guardian stems from their deceitful evasions and blind eye to the epidemic down the years.
I do not know why you have such a marked hostility to Gilligan. His track record on Blair’s dodgy Iraq war dossier, Trojan Horse, Tower Hamlets and the charlatan Fiyaz Mughal of Tell Mama is indisputable.
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The Times has continued to cover CSE cases and court hearings in other parts of the country.
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