More than 150 years jail for 13 men who sexually abused vulnerable Halifax schoolgirl

On the day that South Yorkshire MP Jo Cox was murdered reporting restrictions on this trial at Crown Court Leeds were lifted and some of the crimes of these Muslim men could be made public. I have not said anything here about Mrs Cox, and I am late in posting about these sentences. From the Halifax Courier and the Yorkshire Post.

A judge has passed jail sentences totalling more than 150 years on 13 men convicted of the horrific sexual abuse of a vulnerable schoolgirl from Halifax.

Clockwise from top left~ Hedar Ali, Mohammed Ramzan, Aftab Hussain and Khalid Zaman

Four other men have yet to be sentenced for sex offences in the case, which could not previously be reported because of potential prejudice to a series of trials at Leeds Crown Court but restrictions were lifted this evening (June 16) at the end of the fourth and last trial. The girl was raped and abused between the ages of 13 and 15. One of the men sentenced for offences against her was also jailed for a sexual assault on another girl.

After the verdicts senior investigating officer Detective Chief inspector Nicola Bryar, of West Yorkshire Police, said: “This was the largest and longest running investigation into child sexual exploitation in Calderdale…”

The schoolgirl was preyed on by as many as 100 men, the majority of them of Asian origin, during a two year period. Some took advantage because they saw her as vulnerable, others because word got round she was available.

Juries at four separate trials heard how the schoolgirl was 13 when her mother died after a long illness, by which time she had already got used to fending for herself, sometimes in a house with no electricity or food.

Michelle Colborne QC prosecuting told one trial: “She was a child who has no memory of the first time she had sex such is the extent of the exploitation.”

In early 2011 a police officer co-ordinating missing persons in Calderdale recorded she was potentially a victim of child sexual exploitation because she kept being reported missing and returning drunk or under the influence of drugs, but would not disclose to him who was responsible for giving her them.. .in spite of the attempts to help her while living with her father and his partner, she would still go missing after slipping out to meet men who she thought were her friends but who were really interested only in using her for their own sexual gratification.

By the time she was 15 when she was finally moved in July completely away from the Halifax area in a desperate effort to break the cycle of abuse, she tested positive for sexually transmitted disease.

It was only then, away from the influence of her abusers, that she finally began to see she had been groomed and exploited and began to open up to her foster mother and to the police about her life and who was responsible.

She described being taken to houses in Bradford as well as Halifax, to hotels in Bradford, Leeds and London and to a drug dealer’s big house in Manchester, sometimes being given money but mostly drugs and alcohol.

She identified the Camponile hotel in Bradford as somewhere she had been take to for sex with men and said she was once filmed on a mobile phone being orally raped although that was later deleted. Many of her abusers she only knew by nicknames or no name at all. Some were identified from CCTV which had been seized from the hotels she could remember, while others were caught because of DNA from stains on her clothing.

Jailing the four convicted of the most serious offences, Judge Geoffrey Marson QC described her as a deeply damaged child. She was subjected to humiliation and degradation “at the hands of men who used and abused her for their own sexual gratification. It must have been obvious to anyone who came into contact with her that she was particularly vulnerable.”

She contracted gonorrhoea as a result of her lifestyle, suffers flashbacks of what was done to her and has been diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder.

Aftab Hussain, 37, of Halifax, who pleaded guilty in September last year to two offences of sexual activity with a child, was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

Haaris Ahmed, 32, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts sexual activity with a child and with the supply of Class B drugs. He was sentenced to 12 and a half years imprisonment.

Taukeer Butt, 31, of Halifax, was found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Azeem Subhani, 25, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Tahir Mahmood. 43, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child and sexual assault. He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment.

Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 43, of Halifax, was found guilty of one count of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to six and a half years imprisonment.

Talib Saddiq, 31, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child, and was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Amaar Ali Ditta, 27, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Sikander Malik, 31, of Halifax, was found guilty of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

Haider Ali, 41, of Halifax, was found guilty of sexual activity with a child and causing a person to engage in sexual activity. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

Mohammed Ramzan, 35, of Bradford, was found guilty of rape, and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Khalid Zaman, 38, of Bradford, was found guilty of two counts of rape and supplying Class B drugs and was sentenced to 17 and a half years in jail.

Hedar Ali, 36, of Bradford, was found guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation. He was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.