15 January 2024 , 11:31
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Nine men were jailed over the Rochdale grooming scandal in 2012, with further investigations resulting in the conviction of 42 men - but a damning new report identifies 96 others still deemed a potential risk to children.
The 173-page review covers 2004 to 2013 and sets out multiple failed investigations by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and apparent local authority indifference to the plight of hundreds of youngsters, mainly white girls from poor backgrounds, all identified as potential victims of abuse in Rochdale by Asian men. Of the nine men subsequently convicted, eight were from Pakistani backgrounds and one of Afghan origin.
Twelve men were initially charged with sex trafficking and other offences, including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. Many of those eventually convicted - all aged 24-59 - were married and well-respected within their community, including one who was a religious studies teacher at a mosque.
Two worked for the same taxi firm and another two worked at a takeaway restaurant, while some came from the same village in Pakistan and two shared a flat. Abuse occurring in 2008 and 2009 centred around two takeaways in Heywood, near Rochdale. The victims were preyed on by the gang and bribed into keeping quiet with alcohol, drugs, food and money.
BBC One aired drama series Three Girls and documentary The Betrayed Girls in 2017 which detailed the abuse, as well as how those in power failed to act to stop it despite multiple pleas for help, and the work of whistleblowers Sara Rowbotham and Maggie Oliver. Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham commissioned the authors of the report to look at the issues highlighted by the women in the documentary.
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Four of the convicted, Shabir Ahmed, Adil Khan, Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz, who had dual British and Pakistani citizenships, were stripped of their British citizenship by then Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012 order for them to be deported to Pakistan. However, Rauf and Khan are believed to still be in the UK.
Mohammed Amin
Mohammed Amin (Getty Images)Taxi driver Mohammed Amin, of Falinge Road, Rochdale, was found guilty of sex assaults and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. He was known as Car Zero and drove a Toyota Lucida. He claimed never to have met the girl he sexually assaulted. He claimed to be tee-total but a jury heard how he was regularly seen drinking beer in his taxi.
He worked for Eagle Taxis and was a regular at sex parties at the flat off Whitworth Street in Rochdale, bringing a bottle of vodka with him and a friend who forced himself on one of the girls. He was jailed for five years after he was found guilty of sex assaults and conspiracy.
Abdul Qayyum
Abdul Qayyum (Getty Images)Married father-of-two Abdul Qayyum, of Ramsay Street, Rochdale, was convicted of conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. He was regarded as pillar of Rochdale's Pakistani community, first working as a taxi driver and then setting up his own vehicle recovery business from his home.
Two local councillors even wrote references for the jury, praising his hard work and how he had 'fully adopted the British way of life'. The victims knew him as Tiger. He was jailed for five years after he was convicted of conspiracy.
Adil Khan
Adil Khan (PA)Taxi driver Adil Khan, of Oswald Street, Rochdale, was convicted of trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. He betrayed his wife by starting a sexual relationship with a girl – and just a few weeks after the birth of his first child.
The girl thought he was her boyfriend, telling the jurors he had treated her well. He had come to Rochdale from Kashmir with his wife in 1997. Known as Billy by the girls, he went to the sex parties although he claimed only to be playing cards or watching cricket.
He told the court: "They weren't girls – they were women." The court heard how he had made the girl pregnant but she had an abortion. He was jailed for eight years after he was convicted of conspiracy and trafficking.
Mohammed Sajid
Mohammed SajidCash-and-carry worker Mohammed Sajid, of Jephys Street, Rochdale, was found guilty of rape, trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. The married father, then 35, abused a string of girls at a flat in Rochdale. He came to the UK from the same village in Pakistan as co-defendant Abdul Aziz.
Sajid lived in a flat off Whitworth Street used for scores of sex parties. Neighbours had noticed the stream of taxis parking up outside the property late into the night. He had sex with a girl over a two-year period, later claiming thought she was at least 17. He also raped another girl, creeping into bed while she was sleeping.
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He was jailed for 12 years after he was convicted of conspiracy, sexual activity with a child, rape and trafficking. Earlier in the trial the jury was ordered to find him not guilty of one rape charge.
Abdul Rauf
Qari Abdul Rauf (PA)Taxi driver and Muslim preacher Abdul Rauf, of Darley Road, Rochdale, was convicted of trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. Like some of his co-defendants, he opted to 'affirm' that he would tell the truth – rather than swear on the Koran in court.
The father-of five worked as a qari, reading the Koran for the congregation at Rochdale's Bilal mosque. He claimed to be deeply religious and insisted in court that he only left the post to earn a better wage for his growing family. In fact, he was sacked by the mosque because of poor time-keeping. Mosque leaders denied he had been removed because of allegations he had abused children.
In court, he was constantly praying under his breath in the dock, to the annoyance of his co-defendants, one of whom punched him. He wept when he admitted having sex with a girl in his VW Sharan taxi. It had been a 'big mistake', he said, claiming the girl looked 'maybe 30'. Another girl, the prosecution's main witness, told the jury she had sex with Rauf 20 or 30 times.
Under cross-examination he appeared to feign a collapse. He was jailed for six years after being convicted of trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.
Abdul Aziz
Abdul Aziz (PA)Taxi driver Abdul Aziz, of Armstrong Hurst Close, Rochdale, was cleared of two counts of rape but was convicted of trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. He ferried the girls as far as Leeds and Bradford and was paid by the stream of men who used the girls for sex, getting £40 for each introduction.
Known as Master Aziz or Tariq, the married father-of-three kept a stash of condoms in his taxi. He struck up a business relationship with the young girl that the crown said was part of the plot – she would find him new girls and he would take them to the sex parties. He was jailed for nine years after he was convicted of trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.
Kabeer Hassan
Kabeer Hassan (PA)Kabeer Hassan, of Lacrosse Avenue, Oldham, was convicted of rape and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. He was the youngest member of the gang and worked at the Balti House in Heywood – where he raped a girl. The girl was handed to him as a 'treat', according to the prosecution.
In court, Hassan, who also worked at a fruit and veg stall in Oldham, tried to paint himself as a shocked onlooker trying to cope with streams of abusive and drunken teenagers. Some of them, he said, were 'aggressive and racist'. Some of the girls who visited the shop offered him sex for money, he told the court.
He claimed to have been shocked at the pornographic DVDs other staff put on the upstairs TV for the stream of visiting girls. He was jailed for nine years after he was convicted of rape and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.
Hamid Safi
Hamid Safi (PA)Hamid Safi, of Kensington Street, Rochdale, was found not guilty of two counts of rape but convicted of trafficking and conspiracy. The illegal immigrant, from Afghanistan, hid under a lorry to smuggle himself into Britain after travelling through Turkey and Iran.
He was captured in Birmingham in November, 2008, but released in March 2009. He claimed in court he self-harmed while he was in the detention centre to thwart efforts to deport him. He was jailed for four years after he was convicted of trafficking and conspiracy. He was also found not guilty of two counts of rape.
Shabir Ahmed
Shabir Ahmed (PA)The evil predator who led the Rochdale child sex grooming gang - Shabir Ahmed - was locked up in Leeds prison and fighting efforts to deport him back to his native Pakistan. He was jailed for 22 years. Ahmed, a former taxi driver, was described as the 'ringleader' of the nine-strong group found guilty of exploiting girls as young as 13 at Tasty Bites and another takeaway in Heywood from 2007.
He not only committed rape but 'shared' one of the victims with other men at sex parties across the north. He was convicted of two counts of rape, one sex assault, trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. He led the early part of the grooming plot and raped the prosecution's main witness as she sobbed.
Ahmed, who encouraged his victim to call him Daddy, told her: "Please don't cry – I love you." He bought her alcohol and ferried her to sex parties for other men in return for cash, telling her girls could have sex from the age of 11 'in my country'. He admitted a year-long sexual relationship with another young girl.
He tried to dismiss the prosecution as 'white lies', even launching foul-mouthed tirades against the 'racist' judge and jury. He even left one of the jurors in tears after appearing to leer at her. In court, he dramatically removed his shirt and pulled out a handful of his own chest hair in a bizarre attempt to show the jury that he sheds so much hair he would have left some at the scene of his crime. He is appealing against a decision to strip him of UK citizenship.