A grooming gang ringleader who raped two schoolgirls in Rochdale has been jailed for 35 years.
Mohammed Zahid, 65, known as Boss Man, gave the girls free underwear from his market stall in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends.
The father-of-three was one of seven men convicted in June of committing a raft of sexual offences against the girls between 2001 and 2006.
The girls were sexually exploited from the age of 13 in filthy flats, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses in the Greater Manchester town.
Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard the victims, referred to as Girl A and Girl B, were treated as “sex slaves” and expected to “have sex with the men whenever and wherever they wanted”.
Both girls had “deeply troubled home lives” and were plied with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes and given places to stay by the men, the court was told.
The prosecution said the girls were abused, degraded and then “discarded” by the paedophiles, who worked either at the market or as taxi drivers.
Girl A told the jury she may have been preyed on by hundreds of men as her phone number was passed around, adding “there was that many it was hard to keep count”.
She told local children’s services in 2004 that she was “hanging around” with groups of older men, drinking and smoking cannabis, the court heard.
Girl B, who was living in a children’s home when she came into contact with the men on the market, said police and social workers knew what was going on but “weren’t concerned enough to do anything about it”.
“It was in my file, when I looked it up. I read it,” the woman, now aged in her 30s, told the court.
“I was picked up by the police for loitering and prostituting from the age of 10.”
Social services and police have previously apologised for their past failings regarding the girls.
