Rhyl ‘grooming gang’: Girl was at ‘high risk of exploitation’

The Rhyl Journal continues to report from Crown Court Caernarfon

A GIRL…one of three female child complainants… who was allegedly raped by members of a “grooming gang” in Rhyl was assessed as being at “high risk of sexual exploitation,” a court heard.

One of those complainants, known as Child B, was allegedly raped by three of the defendants; Mustafa Iqbal, Mohamed Arshad and Ziaullah Badshah, who are accused of having supplied the girls with drugs in exchange for sexual acts.

At their trial today (May 6), the jury heard from a support worker who said there were concerns for the child’s safety, emotional and physical wellbeing, and use of drugs and violence. Child B was also assessed as being at “high risk of sexual exploitation”.

Badshah’s barrister Simon Killeen … questioned whether a statement read aloud by Child B at the start of one of her police interviews, played to the jury earlier in the trial, was actually “authored” by Child B herself. “Whoever wrote this has done a lot of research into sexual exploitation, and it was not Child B,”

The trial, expected to last until June, resumes tomorrow.