Aylesbury child sex ring: Six guilty of schoolgirl abuse

There is so much in the news this morning (at last!) about this case that I will make it several posts. This is from the Telegraph about the actual trial.

Six members of a child sex ring in Aylesbury have been found guilty of their part in the horrifying abuse of two schoolgirls that went on for years on a massive scale. A total of 11 men went on trial for 51 offences between 2006 and 2012 – including multiple rape of a child, child prostitution and administering a substance to “stupefy” a girl in order to engage in sexual activity.

The jury took more than 42 hours to find six of them guilty of a range of offences against the girls, who spent days giving evidence and being cross-examined at the Old Bailey. Four defendants were cleared, while the jury could not decide on one of them. The CPS are asking for a re-trial. 

• Vikram Singh, 45, of Aylesbury, was found guilty of four counts of rape and administering a substance with intent.
• Asif Hussain, 33, of Milton Keynes, was convicted of three counts of rape.
• Arshad Jani, 33, of Aylesbury, was found guilty of rape and conspiracy to rape.
• Mohammed Imran, 38, Bradford, was convicted of three counts of rape, one count of conspiracy to rape and one count of child prostitution.
• Akbari Khan, 36, of Aylesbury, was found guilty of two counts of rape, administering a substance with intent, conspiracy to rape.
• Taimoor Khan, 29, of Aylesbury, was convicted of one count of sexual activity with a child.

Clockwise from top left, Vikram Singh, Asif Hussain, Arshad Jani, Taimoor Khan, Akbari Khan and Mohammed Imran, The men gave no reaction as the verdicts were given. 

The men filled the dock in court, some of them using the services of various interpreters speaking Hindi, Urdu, Pashto and Punjabi.

The court earlier heard that both victims came from troubled backgrounds and wanted to feel grown-up when they were befriended by the men, who groomed them by showering them with inexpensive gifts such as alcohol, DVDs, food and occasionally drugs.

While aged just 12 or 13, one of the vulnerable girls, known in the trial as A, was passed between 60 mainly Asian men for sex after being conditioned into thinking it was normal behaviour, jurors were told. The vast majority of the charges related to this child, while three charges related to girl B. 

Prosecutor Oliver Saxby QC told the jury the youngsters were “easy prey for a group of men wanting casual sexual gratification that was easy, regular and readily available”. He said the girls’ ideas of what was right had been “completely distorted”, and that they thought what was happening was “normal” and “natural”.

Mr Saxby told jurors: “Notwithstanding that they were children, they spoke in terms of these men being their boyfriends. And they were passed from man to man – sometimes on a daily basis. The scale of it is, you may agree, horrifying. A estimated that she had sex with about 60 men – six zero – almost all Asian.”

Many of the defendants were friends from the Aylesbury area. Some were married and had children, with some working in the market and a few working as taxi drivers. Sentencing was adjourned until to September 7. 

I would be interested to know whether the men with non Muslim names, one convicted, one facing a possible re-trial were converts or opportunists – either way they should all go down for a very long time.