Rochdale gang guilty of raping and abusing girls for five years

Seven men have been found guilty of sexually exploiting two teenage girls who were repeatedly raped and assaulted in Rochdale for five years.

The gang was convicted at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court of various sexual offences against the girls between 2001 and 2006.

The victims were groomed from the age of 13 and treated as “sex slaves”, being expected to “have sex with the men whenever and wherever they wanted”, the trial heard.

Jurors deliberated for three weeks before delivering their unanimous guilty verdicts.

The court heard that both girls had “deeply troubled home lives” and were plied with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes and given places to stay.

Some of the abusers worked on market stalls or were taxi drivers.

Three of them, Mohammed Zahid, 64, the leader of the gang, Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, and Kasir Bashir, 50, were stallholders on the town’s indoor market.

Father-of-three Zahid, who was known as Boss Man, gave free underwear from his lingerie stall to both complainants.

He also gifted them with money, alcohol and food in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends, the court heard.

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 after he absconded while on bail before the trial got under way.

It can also be reported that Mohammed Shahzad, 44, Naheem Akram, 48, and Nisar Hussain, 41, were remanded in custody in January.

Police received intelligence that the three taxi drivers, who were born in Rochdale, were planning to leave the UK and had already paid a deposit for their transport, the court heard.

The seventh defendant Roheez Khan, 39, also featured in another previous Rochdale grooming trial in 2013.

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.