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Seven members of the latest Rochdale Asian grooming gang have been convicted of exploiting two young girls as 'sex slaves'.
The gang preyed on the vulnerabilities of the victims to groom them from the age of 13 over a five-year-long campaign of abuse between 2001 and 2006.
Both girls had 'deeply troubled home lives' and were given drugs, alcohol, cigarette, places to stay and people to be with, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard.
They were expected to have sex 'whenever and wherever' the defendants and other men wanted in filthy flats, on rancid mattresses, in cars, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses.
Jurors deliberated for three weeks before delivering their unanimous guilty verdicts on Friday.
Three of the abusers, Mohammed Zahid, 64, Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, and Kasir Bashir, 50, - all born in Pakistan - were stallholders on Rochdale's indoor market.
The gang's depraved ringleader Zahid was even known as 'Knickerman' because of his underwear stall at the centuries-old trading hub.
The pot-bellied, wispy-haired father-of-three exploited his products' appeal to young girls to lure in vulnerable youngsters who were then subjected to 'years of misery'.
Seven members of the latest Rochdale Asian grooming gang have been convicted of exploiting two young girls as 'sex slaves'. Mohammed Zahid, 64, is seen in a police interview
Mohammed Zahid, 64, who was the gang's ringleader and had a stall at Rochdale's indoor market
Top row, left to right: Kasir Bashir, Mohammed Shahzad; middle row, left to right: Mushtaq Ahmed, Roheez Khan; bottom row, left to right: Naheem Akram, Nisar Hussain
In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years in an earlier grooming gang case after he engaged in sexual activity in 2006 with a 15-year-old girl who he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school.
Bashir did not attend the current trial as jurors were ordered not to speculate why but it can be revealed that he absconded while on bail before the trial got under way.
It can also be reported that co-defendants Mohammed Shahzad, 44, Naheem Akram, 48, and Nisar Hussain, 41, were remanded in custody with their bail revoked in January before the jury was sworn in.
A seventh defendant, Pakistani-born Roheez Khan, 39, also featured in another previous Rochdale grooming trial in 2013 when he was one of five men convicted of sexually exploiting a 'profoundly vulnerable' 15-year-old girl in 2008 and 2009.
Khan was jailed for six-and-a-half years for engaging in sexual activity with a child and witness intimidation.
Today's verdicts come as:
Mohammed Zahid (left) is facing a facing lengthy jail sentences after being convicted of grooming young girls in Rochdale
Rochdale's market has served the Greater Manchester town since 1251 - but two perverted traders used their stalls to groom and exploit young girls, the trial heard (stock image)
Gang member and former shopkeeper Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, arriving at court during his trial
Starting when they were aged just 13, two terrified girls were 'passed around' for sex between fellow traders and taxi drivers – all from Rochdale's Pakistani community - between 2001 and 2006.
They would then be callously 'discarded', jurors in a ten-week trial heard.
Following a string of successful prosecutions which made the Greater Manchester town grimly synonymous with the scourge of grooming gangs, the victims – now in their 30s – decided to come forward to seek justice over their ordeals.
In harrowing detail, one described her terror as she was raped by 'massive' and 'aggressive' paedophile.
Heartbreakingly it also heard how the girl - at the time living in a children's home - was scandalously dismissed by social workers as having been 'prostituting' herself from the age of ten.
As the pair's abusers now face lengthy prison terms, it can be revealed that two – including Zahid, who also used the nickname 'Bossman' - have already spent time behind bars over Rochdale child sex rings.
Jurors also weren't told that the three British-born members of the gang were locked up partway through the trial following 'intelligence' that they planned to flee to Pakistan.
A fourth skipped bail as the case got underway and was tried in his absence - his whereabouts are unknown.
The gang preyed on the vulnerabilities of the victims to groom them from the age of 13 over a five-year-long campaign of abuse between 2001 and 2006.
Both girls had 'deeply troubled home lives' and were given drugs, alcohol, cigarette, places to stay and people to be with, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard.
They were expected to have sex 'whenever and wherever' the defendants and other men wanted in filthy flats, on rancid mattresses, in cars, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses.
Jurors deliberated for three weeks before delivering their unanimous guilty verdicts on Friday.
Three of the abusers, Mohammed Zahid, 64, Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, and Kasir Bashir, 50, - all born in Pakistan - were stallholders on Rochdale's indoor market.
The gang's depraved ringleader Zahid was even known as 'Knickerman' because of his underwear stall at the centuries-old trading hub.
The pot-bellied, wispy-haired father-of-three exploited his products' appeal to young girls to lure in vulnerable youngsters who were then subjected to 'years of misery'.
Seven members of the latest Rochdale Asian grooming gang have been convicted of exploiting two young girls as 'sex slaves'. Mohammed Zahid, 64, is seen in a police interview
Mohammed Zahid, 64, who was the gang's ringleader and had a stall at Rochdale's indoor market
Top row, left to right: Kasir Bashir, Mohammed Shahzad; middle row, left to right: Mushtaq Ahmed, Roheez Khan; bottom row, left to right: Naheem Akram, Nisar Hussain
In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years in an earlier grooming gang case after he engaged in sexual activity in 2006 with a 15-year-old girl who he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school.
Bashir did not attend the current trial as jurors were ordered not to speculate why but it can be revealed that he absconded while on bail before the trial got under way.
It can also be reported that co-defendants Mohammed Shahzad, 44, Naheem Akram, 48, and Nisar Hussain, 41, were remanded in custody with their bail revoked in January before the jury was sworn in.
A seventh defendant, Pakistani-born Roheez Khan, 39, also featured in another previous Rochdale grooming trial in 2013 when he was one of five men convicted of sexually exploiting a 'profoundly vulnerable' 15-year-old girl in 2008 and 2009.
Khan was jailed for six-and-a-half years for engaging in sexual activity with a child and witness intimidation.
Today's verdicts come as:
- One of the defendants is on the run and absconded before the current trial got underway
- Police received intelligence the three Rochdale-born taxi drivers were planning to leave the UK and were consequently denied bail
- The Conservatives renewed their call for a national statutory inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal
Mohammed Zahid (left) is facing a facing lengthy jail sentences after being convicted of grooming young girls in Rochdale
Rochdale's market has served the Greater Manchester town since 1251 - but two perverted traders used their stalls to groom and exploit young girls, the trial heard (stock image)
Gang member and former shopkeeper Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, arriving at court during his trial
Starting when they were aged just 13, two terrified girls were 'passed around' for sex between fellow traders and taxi drivers – all from Rochdale's Pakistani community - between 2001 and 2006.
They would then be callously 'discarded', jurors in a ten-week trial heard.
Following a string of successful prosecutions which made the Greater Manchester town grimly synonymous with the scourge of grooming gangs, the victims – now in their 30s – decided to come forward to seek justice over their ordeals.
In harrowing detail, one described her terror as she was raped by 'massive' and 'aggressive' paedophile.
Heartbreakingly it also heard how the girl - at the time living in a children's home - was scandalously dismissed by social workers as having been 'prostituting' herself from the age of ten.
As the pair's abusers now face lengthy prison terms, it can be revealed that two – including Zahid, who also used the nickname 'Bossman' - have already spent time behind bars over Rochdale child sex rings.
Jurors also weren't told that the three British-born members of the gang were locked up partway through the trial following 'intelligence' that they planned to flee to Pakistan.
A fourth skipped bail as the case got underway and was tried in his absence - his whereabouts are unknown.
