Three men have been given jail sentences for rape as part of a grooming gang – in a hearing in which authorities were accused of treating victims as “authoresses of their own misfortune”.
Ibrar Hussain, 47, Imtiaz Ahmed, 62, and Fayaz Ahmed, 45, were sentenced to prison sentences of six-and-a-half years, nine years, and seven-and-a-half years respectively at Bradford Crown Court.
A judge described how they raped one of the girls in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in the 1990s, when she was 13 or 14.
Only Hussain was present to start his sentence, with the court hearing the Ahmed brothers both absconded during their trial. They are believed to be abroad, the court heard.
The three are the latest of eight defendants who have been jailed in relation to the abuse of the two girls, it can now be reported.
One of the girls, who is now in her 40s, said in a statement read to the court: “I feel that if I had been listened to sooner, rather than later, my life could have been different.”
She said she “became an object – used and abused from the age of 13”.
‘I still carry shame’
She added: “Nothing in the world can ever fix the damage they caused me. Because of them I have lost my identity.”
Almost 30 years after the abuse, the girl said she still suffered flashbacks “in my waking life and in my nightmares”.
She said the trauma left her unable to trust people, “including the services there to protect me, but didn’t”.
“Still, to this day, I carry shame,” she said.
“I hope that, once this is over, I may finally be able to move on with my life and reach my potential.”
Judge Ahmed Nadim said the girl’s mother went to Keighley police station a number of times to report her missing, but that officers “did not do anything about it”.
“To differing degrees, the social services and police response to the situation (the girls) found themselves in was that they were the authoresses of their own misfortune,” he said.
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He described how the girls were plied with drugs and alcohol as they were passed between numerous men, “virtually all of whom were of Asian heritage”, in the town in the 1990s, when they were in their early teens.
The judge explained how the girls each had “unhappy home lives” and one was bullied in school.
He said this left them “vulnerable to sexual exploitation” and the “lure of older men that other girls wanted to be with”.
The judge said they misguidedly thought they were getting the “compassion, care and attention” they were lacking at home, but this turned into rape and abuse.
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He said one of the girls was raped twice by Hussain in a basement after he plied her with heroin.
She was also raped on a school field by Fayaz Ahmed after he met her when he was introduced by a man and woman who were operating her as a sex worker.
Judge Nadim said: “The message must go out loud and clear that the criminal justice system will do all it can to protect young and vulnerable members of our community.”
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He said he hoped the girls would find it a “comfort to know that their voices, at long last, have been heard”.
Detective Chief Inspector Vicky Greenbank, of Bradford District Police, praised the courage of the girls, who reported the abuse in 2016.
She said: “I hope this sends a clear message that, regardless of how long ago these offences may have happened, we will pursue every avenue to get justice.”
West Yorkshire Police said a warrant had been issued for the arrest of the Ahmed brothers and “inquiries are ongoing to locate them”.
The three defendants were found guilty of rape at the end of a trial which finished in December.
It can now be reported that five other men were jailed following a previous trial, which finished in October 2023.
The longest sentence was given to Mohammed Din, 47, of Keighley, who was jailed for 14 years for 11 counts of rape. He is the only one of the eight defendants who was convicted of raping both the girls.
