Rochdale grooming gang who plied young girls with alcohol and drugs before abusing them jailed
ITV Granada Reports journalist Rob Smith reports
A gang of men who plied young girls with alcohol and drugs before sexually abusing them "like a piece of meat" have been jailed.
The victims, who were aged 13 and 14 and described as "ripe for exploitation", were targeted by the "highly predatory, controlling and manipulative" behaviour between 2002 and 2006 in Rochdale.
The pair, known as Girls A and B, were passed around by the gang and treated as "mere objects" for them to "use, abuse, humiliate then discard", Minshull Street Crown Court heard.
The girls were plied with alcohol, cannabis and ecstasy pills before being sexually assaulted by various men, either together or on their own.
The crimes only came to light in 2015 after one victim, now aged in her 30s, told another how she had been "abused daily".
She claimed they would "feed me alcohol and drugs... and pass me on to their friends.”
The men, Ali Kasmi, 36 of Brotherod Hall Road, Insar Hussain, 38 of Bishop St, Jahn Ghani, 50 of Whitworth Rd, Mohammed Ghani, 39 of Bamford Way, all Rochdale, and Martin Rhodes, 39 of Dinmore Avenue, Blackpool were all arrested and convicted as part of a police crackdown into the non-recent sexual exploitation of children.
The court heard how the men exploited the "young, vulnerable and damaged children".
"The men would provide the girls vodka, drugs and apparent affection in order to persuade them that they were genuinely liked by the men, and not just being used for sex," prosecutor Neil Usher said.
He said not all of the men knew each other, but that the gang was ‘centred’ around 38-year-old Mohammed Ghani, known as ‘Gunny’.
Girl A, who was sexually abused over a period of years, believed she was in a "genuine relationship" with Ghani, who would "offer her out" to his friends for sex.
She was filmed blacked out from vodka, being assaulted with a bottle as men laughed and the video was then shared around Rochdale.
Ghani would tell her that he’d "love her even more if she did that for him".
But, during sentencing, Judge Landale told Ghani: "You did indeed treat her as a piece of meat, this was no relationship, you had no interest in her other than sex.
"You regularly engaged into sex with her, you made her feel like she had to have sex with your friends to please you.
"It is clear that everything you did and said was manipulating her. You groomed her into thinking she had to perform sexual acts.
"The only thing she wanted from you was affection."
The sentences given:
Jahn Shahid Ghani - 20 years imprisonment for six counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a child to engage in sexual activity
Mohammed Ghani - 14 years for five counts of sexual assault
Insar Hussain - 17 years for one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault
Ali Razza Hussain Kasmi - eight years for one count of rape and two counts of sexual intercourse with a child
Martin Rhodes - 12 years six months for four counts of sexual assault
Following the sentencing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the men showed a "total disregard" for their victims.
Frances Killeen, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West’s Complex Casework Unit, said: “The men who committed these appalling offences, have finally been brought to justice.
"They all showed a total disregard for the effect their abuse would have on their victims. These incidents continue to impact upon the lives of the women today.
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank both victims for reporting the offences to the police and for having the confidence to see these criminal proceedings through to the end."
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Senior Investigating Officer Detective, Chief Inspector Guy Laycock said it had been a multi-agency approach to bring the five men to justice.
He said: “First and foremost, I want to put on record my thanks to the survivors.
"Throughout our investigation and this trial, they have put their trust in my team and have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in the face of their traumatic experiences at the hands of these abhorrent offenders.
“Years’ of hard work have brought us to this point and it would be amiss not to recognise the invaluable contribution of staff from Rochdale Council who have played an essential role in helping us to identify and engage with victims, and the Crown Prosecution Service with whom we built a strong case which secured the convictions of these men and these lengthy sentences – ensuring they are held accountable and prevented from causing further harm."
Maggie Oliver, a former Detective at Greater Manchester Police, resigned from the force in 2012 after going public over the botched Rochdale grooming inquiry.
She now runs a foundation to help survivors of sexual exploitation and violence.
She said: "The pattern in this type of abuse begins with them being befriended and then they will be the boyfriend and then they get drawn in and quite often these children have never had any attention, they haven't had any love, they don't understand that they are being exploited
"The boyfriend becomes a gang of people and they get passed around, they are often brutalised and taken around the country and very often, just like in this case the child doesn't realise they are being abused until they are out of the abuse"
"We need professionals to act early, to step in and stop it and we need Police to prosecute the abusers early, because if they don't act those men go on to destroy dozens of lives, many other children it will not just be this child it will be everyone that follows after her and I daren't even think how many that will be."