Jail for ex-Rochdale footballer Jonathan Diba-Musangu for sex offences against young girls

A former Rochdale AFC goalkeeper has been jailed for 24 years for a series of serious sexual offences against victims as young as seven.

Rapist Jonathan Diba-Musangu, who was with Rochdale in the mid-to-late 2010s, was convicted of 12 sexual offences against six victims he targeted between 2012 and 2017.

Jailed or 24 years -Jonathan Diba-Musangu Credit: MEN Media

The 23-year-old's youngest victim was just seven when he raped her in 2012, the CPS said, while Diba-Musangu raped a 12-year-old girl at a summer camp four years later.

He was arrested in 2018 after his victims began confiding in each other and realised they were suffering similar abuse.

Diba-Musangu denied the allegations and said those accusing him were attempting to ruin his life.

The player was at Rochdale from 2010 Credit: PA Pictures

The CPS said the case against Diba-Musangu relied heavily on witness accounts. Working closely with Greater Manchester Police, experts also analysed more than one million strands of mobile phone data which was put into charts for the jury to follow.

Diba-Musangu was convicted of three counts of rape of a child under 13, two counts of rape, two counts of sexually assaulting a child under 13, two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and three counts of sexual activity with a child, the CPS said.