And another head of the hydra appears at Crown Court Manchester (and it’s Rochdale. Again). We will conquer it – London WILL be cracked wide open, and sooner rather than later – I feel it.
From the Telegraph and The Manchester Evening News That paper has a detailed blog today and it is worth following the link to read some of the evidence in the prosecution opening remarks. I hope they will be allowed to continue to report regularly. These hidden trials and buried transcripts are angering the public.
An Asian Muslim – look at the names! grooming gang told victims it was forbidden for Muslim men to use condoms, a court has heard.
Six men accused of abusing teenage girls in Rochdale appeared at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on Monday.
Alleged ringleader Tahir Rashid, 54, is said to have abused two vulnerable schoolgirls and also to have raped a 12-year-old girl in the late 1980s.
Opening the case, Rossano Scamardella, prosecuting, said: “Unprotected sex was routine. The girls were lied to about it being forbidden for Muslim men to use protection.”
The men “cared not a bit about sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies”, the prosecutor added. “Their experiences at the hands of these predatory men was appalling. They were children passed around for sex – abused, degraded and then discarded.”
His co-defendants are charged with offences against Girl A and/or Girl C, said to have taken place on various dates between 2003 and 2006.
Mohammed Saleem, 46, of Rochdale; Sucklane Shah, (you couldn’t make that up for a sex offender) 46, of no fixed abode, and Itfaq Hussain, 45, of Shawforth, all deny rape.
Arshad Mohammed, 55, of Rochdale, has entered not guilty pleas to rape and assault by penetration, while Amjad Mahmood, 53, of Rochdale – who was not in the dock – has pleaded not guilty to offences of rape, indecent assault, indecency with a child and assault by penetration.
The young girls, known as Girl A and Girl C were “easy prey” for the grooming gang, the prosecutor added. They were friends in Rochdale who both led “troubled lives,” the court heard. The prosecutor said the pattern of the case was “common” to child sexual exploitation.
Mr Scamardella added that Rochdale and surrounding parts of Greater Manchester had been “blighted by this type of child sexual exploitation”.
Addressing the jury on aspects of law, prosecutor Mr Scamardella spoke of the issue of consent.
He said: “You will hear in this case that the girls agreed to have sex with the men, they often hated what they did, but nonetheless, they agreed. Not only did they agree, they rarely, if ever, complained before or afterwards and in those circumstances, you might be forgiven for thinking that they consented to the sex. However, it is not as straightforward as that, but the law on consent makes perfect sense.
Someone consents in English law if they agree by choice to the sexual activity and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice. The context is all important when you consider whether the girls in this case had the freedom and capacity to agree by choice to sex with the defendants.
The considerations will include, but not be limited to, their age, whether they understood properly what they were doing and what they were being asked to do, whether they were provided with gifts of alcohol, clothes, money and drugs, whether this type of grooming behaviour has been exhibited towards them before or by others, the disparity in age, whether they were drunk or on drugs, or both, and whether they were asleep or unconscious, or whether the girls had been duped or deceived into agreeing to sex.”
The trial has been adjourned and will resume with evidence on Tuesday morning.
One Response
“The girls were lied to about it being forbidden for Muslim men to use protection.”
What a pity the opportunity wasn’t used to make clear what Islam teaches about sex with children itself, rather than suggest by this that Islamic sexual mores are the same as western ones. And how ironic the opportunity wasn’t taken given that the importance of context was stressed regarding consent.
It seems the one thing that can never be in the dock is Islam itself. And that’s why all these trials and inquiries will never get to the bottom of this cesspit.