Rochdale grooming gang leader gets 22 years for child rape

'Unpleasant and hypocritical bully' Shabir Ahmed, 59, sentenced in separate trial over abusing Asian girl for 10 years
Shabir Ahmed court case Shabir Ahmed treated his victim like a 'possession', the sourt was told. Photograph: Greater Manchester police/PA

The ringleader of a gang of men in Rochdale that groomed young white girls for sex has been given a 22-year prison sentence after he was convicted of 30 child rapes in a separate case involving a young Asian girl.

Shabir Ahmed, 59, of Oldham, Greater Manchester was one of nine men convicted of sex offences against children at Liverpool crown court in May. He was jailed for 19 years but could not be identified at the time because of the pending trial.

Ahmed was convicted in June at Manchester's Minshull Street crown court of raping and sexually abusing an Asian girl for more than a decade. On Thursday he was given a 22-year sentence for abusing his victim. Judge Khokhar told him the sentence will run concurrently with the earlier one.

The court heard that he raped and sexually abused a young Asian girl repeatedly over many years and treated her as a possession for his own sexual gratification. Ahmed, a former takeaway driver, smirked as the jury returned the unanimous verdicts.

During the earlier trial in Liverpool it emerged that Ahmed was known to his victims by the nickname Daddy. Judge Gerald Clifton, who sentenced Ahmed in Liverpool, said the gang treated their victims "as though they were worthless and beyond any respect".

Ahmed and the other men were convicted of conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with children under 16. In May, he was also convicted of two counts of rape, aiding and abetting a rape, sexual assault and a count of trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation.

He was banned from the courtroom in Liverpool for his sentencing hearing because of his threatening behaviour and for calling Clifton a "racist bastard". The judge called the defendant an "unpleasant and hypocritical bully".

In June, reporting restrictions were lifted after he was convicted of 30 charges of rape by a jury. The court heard that Ahmed was violent and dominated his victim.

Rachel Smith, opening the case for the prosecution, said Ahmed repeatedly, over a period of more than a decade, raped the victim. She said: "She tried to make him stop, but it was to no avail." She said the victim was eventually forced to submit to him and the abuse happened almost every week. "The defendant was a violent and controlling man," said Smith.

She added: "The defendant treated [her] as some sort of possession to be used for his own sexual gratification, as and when he chose."

The jury was told that the victim felt a sense of shame about what happened to her, which stopped her reporting it to the police for many years. "The reality of what he had done to her was never far from her thoughts … she describes having dreams about it," Smith added.


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