Eight men have been jailed for between five and 19 years for sexually exploiting and causing “immeasurable and far-reaching harm” to teenage girls in Rotherham. The men were convicted of 19 charges, including rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment of girls as young as 13 between 1999 and 2003.
Sentencing at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday, Judge Sarah Wright said the men had caused “severe psychological harm” to their three victims. The main complainant, now 27 and a campaigner against child sexual exploitation, said she felt vindicated after the convictions. “I just couldn’t quite believe it. I felt vindicated. Yet when the verdicts came in, it proved to me that justice could have been done 13 years ago,” she said.
The woman, who uses the pseudonym Emma Jackson, told the court her abusers threatened to “gang rape” her mother if she did not submit. The abuse took place largely in an alley behind a Boots branch in Rotherham town centre, in a park and near a museum. Her family moved to Spain after complaining to police, social services, their MP and the then home secretary, David Blunkett.
Among those jailed were cousins Sageer Hussain, 30, and Basharat Hussain, 40. Sageer received 19 years for a “campaign of violent rape” against a 13-year-old, while Basharat was given seven years for indecent assault, concurrent with a 25-year term for other offences. Other sentences included Ishtiaq Khaliq, 17 years; Waleed Ali, 13 years; Asif Ali, 12 years; Masoued Malik, 15 years; Naeem Rafiq, eight years; and Mohammed Whied, five years.
The National Crime Agency is separately investigating more than 11,100 lines of inquiry relating to non-familial child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2003. Thirty-eight people have been designated suspects, with 133 alleged victims identified. The operation, codenamed Stovewood, began after the 2014 Jay report revealed at least 1,400 children had been exploited in the area over 16 years.
