July 2021

Sick trio raped schoolgirl in playground, bedroom and on filthy mattresses

Three members of a vile gang have been jailed for grooming and raping a young schoolgirl.

The teenager was subjected to a reign of sexual abuse by Banaras Hussain, Mohammed Akram and Talish Mahmood Ahmed throughout the period of 1995 and 1998.

A court heard during a trial how the vulnerable girl was raped in a primary school playground and one of the men even climbed up a drainpipe and into her bedroom at her dad’s house and raped her.

The three defendants accepted knowing who the complainant was, but proceeded to deny all the charges on a seven-count indictment.

ThrougHout the trial, lead prosecutor Kate Barry informed the jury that the case concerned the sexual exploitation of a 13-year-old girl, who from a young age was targeted by older men who wanted to use her for their own vile sexual agenda.

Mrs Batty described the girl as vulnerable with low-self esteem.

She said older men struck up conversations with her in the street and she was groomed between them by being made to feel special, including by being given cigarettes, vodka, special brew lager and drugs.

Mrs Batty said: “By the time she was 13 years old, she was drinking every day and was intoxicated most of the time.

“More and more men came onto the scene and the group got bigger and bigger – such that she can’t even remember them all now.”

Mrs Batty said the teenager was treated as an “object”, adding: “Routine to her became the day in, day out events of being touched or groped or having sex on grubby mattresses on the floors of flats and houses that she found herself in.”

In a victim personal statement, read out during sentencing, the woman abused by the three men said she felt “lost, embarrassed, ashamed and broken” as she gave evidence at their trial.

She said she had hoped to carry the memories of the abuse to her grave but seeing the picture of Gul Riaz, another one of her abusers who is already behind bars, prompted her to fight for justice.

She went on to say she felt let down by West Yorkshire Police “in the worst possible way”.

The statement went on to say she had learnt to wear an invisible mask for her whole life and suffered from flashbacks.

She said now that the trial is over, she hopes to put the abuse back in a box until the day she dies.

Hussain was Married at the time he groomed the 13-year-old girl.

It is alleged that he abused her twice a week over a period of around a year or so, usually in the woods or in a primary school’s playground.

Mrs Batty said: “He took her to a house one day where again the alcohol and drugs were free flowing.

“In the bedroom of that house, she lost her virginity to him on a mattress without bedding, using a curtain as a blanket.”

She said Hussain left the girl heartbroken after introducing her to other men.

Hussain, 44, of Church Street, Paddock, was found guilty of two counts of rape and described as the “primary groomer”.

He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Akram, also known as Buckree, was in a relationship at the time he is accused of first abusing the complainant.

Jurors were told that he had been present on many occasions both on the playground and in flats or houses where the girl was taken, including when she lost her virginity.

He introduced her to amphetamine and thought he could grope her sexually when he wanted.

The prosecutor said Akram first raped the girl on an airbed in a flat when she was aged 15, high and drunk.

She said the defendant’s girlfriend was asleep next to them on the airbed when it happened.

“On a second occasion, when she was still 15, she was at her father’s house when he climbed up the drainpipe and into her bedroom.

“Again, she was intoxicated and again he abused her before leaving in the early hours of the morning so that her father didn’t become aware that he was in the house.”

Akram, 44, of Moorbottom Road, Thornton Lodge, denied two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault but was found guilty by the jury of all three.

He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

The prosecutor said the girl was aged 15 when she was taken from a snooker centre to a flat, had her drink spiked, was taken in a car to a secluded location in the dark and was raped

She said: “Talish Ahmed was a passenger. She remembers him being in the back with her. He abused with her when she was in no fit state to consent; a state that they had deliberately put her in so that she could be raped.

“Once they were finished with her, she was dumped, thrown out of the taxi at the end of her street with her knickers and trousers round by her ankles.

“They couldn’t even be bothered to help her get dressed again.”

Mrs Batty described the incident as the “final straw” for the complainant, adding: “The offence he committed against her marked the end of her abuse.”

The incident was reported to police at the time so the prosecution has been able to say it happened on November 25, 1997.

The prosecutor said the complainant feels “let down” by the police, explaining: “She gave a statement to the police and was medically examined. Despite that, no action was ever taken.

“It’s not entirely clear why but what we do know is that things have come a long way since the late 1990s in terms of our understanding of sexual offending.”

Jurors were told that the complainant moved on with her life and intended to take the abuse to her grave until she saw a photo of one of her other abusers in a newspaper alongside an article about him being prosecuted for child sexual exploitation offences.

Ahmed, 41, of Rashcliffe Hill Road, Lockwood, was convicted of one count of rape.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.