Two teenage girls were groomed to become ‘sex slaves’ for Asian men, including a market trader known as ‘The Knickerman’, a jury heard today.
Mohammed Zahid, who sold lingerie on the market and was said to have given free underwear to the teenagers, allegedly raped and sexually abused both girls after meeting the victims when he was in his 40s.
A court heard Zahid, who also went by the name Boss Man, gave the girls – who did not know each other – free cash, alcohol, food and underwear in return for regular sex with himself and other Asian men in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
The defendant, now 64, is on trial with seven co-defendants but was said to be the only one who had abused both alleged victims on the 56-count indictment.
Prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC said both girls were well known to social services and other agencies, and it was ‘no secret’ they were having sex with older Asian men.
But he said no reports were made to the police and ‘nothing was done’ at the time of the historic offending.
Mr Scamardella added: ‘No action was taken to stop what was happening to these two girls or to stop other similarly vulnerable girls suffering the same fate.’
The court heard it was not until 2010 – nine years after the abuse being outlined to the court allegedly started – that investigations into child sexual exploitation in the town started.
Jurors were told that one of the two victims was identified as a potential victim at the time but ‘declined to get involved’.
It was five years before she came forward to report what had happened to her and, with the second victim also speaking to police, an investigation began.
The court heard the girls were described as ‘easy prey’ for the defendants. The men capitalised on their vulnerabilities ‘for their own perverted sexual gratification, in the most humiliating and degrading way imaginable’, Mr Scamardella said.
The court heard the abuse began when each girl was just 13 years old and they were both abused for more than three years. They were expected to have sex with the defendants ‘whenever and wherever the men wanted’, jurors were told.
Both girls were said to be ‘vulnerable’, with troubled home lives, were known to the authorities and one was in care.
But they became ‘beholden’ to their abusers who, Mr Scamardella said, for the first time in their lives ‘treated them properly and gave them the attention they so desperately craved.’
He added: ‘Through no fault of their own, their troubled backgrounds made them susceptible to the advances of these men, and others who behaved just like them.
‘Their treatment at the hands of these predators was appalling. They were children passed around for sex; abused, degraded and then discarded and, that it was the two of them that were exploited in this way, was not by chance.’
The prosecutor went on: ‘It would begin by making the girls feel like grown-ups as they were given alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, places to stay and people to be with.
‘Over time it is perhaps easy to see how they became beholden to men who, for the first time in their lives, treated them properly and gave them the attention they so desperately craved.
‘But that was to quickly change, and drastically so.
‘The girls were expected to have sex with these men and others, whenever and wherever the men wanted. They were often forced to have oral sex and vaginal sex with multiple men on the same day, in filthy flats and on rancid mattresses.
‘Both girls would be expected to answer calls at all times of the day and night from the men that wanted to have sex with them.’
The court heard the girls were expected to have unprotected sex with multiple men on the same day, in flats, cars, car parks, alleyways or disused warehouses.
‘The girls were lied to about it being forbidden for Muslim men to use protection’, Mr Scamardella told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
‘These men cared not a bit about sexually-transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies.’
The court heard one of the victims fell pregnant at the age of 14 by one of the defendants, Kasir Bashir, who was eight years older than her at the time.
Some of the abuse was videoed, with the victim threatened that the film would be distributed if she did not have sex with her abusers – only for the footage to end up being disseminated to friends and family anyway.
The court heard the girls would hang around groups of Asian men at various parks, woods or at Rochdale market and a snooker hall.
‘They would be driven around by these men, picked up and dropped off at various flats and houses’, the prosecutor said.
They were forced to have sex on ‘rancid mattresses’ and in ‘filthy flats’, he said.
The court heard one of the victims was abused by Zahid and Ahmed in the ‘grim, cold, dark’ basement of a shop that belonged to the latter man.
The court heard the basement had a mattress, which the alleged victim described as having an awful smell.
‘She would have to go into the basement and take off her clothes and wait on the mattress’, Mr Scamardella said. Jurors were told one of the men would then go down the stairs to the basement for sex, leaving the girl naked on the mattress until the second man came down to ‘treat her in precisely the same way’.
He said they displayed ‘utter contempt’ towards the girl, who was also allegedly abused by the pair and Bashir at another address in Chadderton.
Mr Scamardella said at that address there would be ‘many men there, all speaking their native language, which of course she did not understand’ and she would be given Archers peach spirit to drink.
The girl said she had sex with as many as five men in one evening.
The court heard that when the police investigation began, the two alleged victims gave officers the names of the men that abused them.
Once the investigation began in 2015, the alleged victims were taken on drives around Rochdale to identify places of significance enabling the police to piece together where the sordid events took place.
Both girls would be expected to answer calls at all times of the day and night from the men that wanted to have sex with them.
One victim told police she would often be on the phone to one man when others were waiting on hold.
The court heard most of the defendants were either connected to the market in Rochdale or worked as taxi drivers.
Jurors were told Zahid allegedly raped one of the girls in the back of his car, while she was wearing her school uniform.
Mr Scamardella said Zahid introduced Bashir, a fellow market trader, to the girl whom he went on to make pregnant.
Mushtaq Ahmed was a friend of Zahid and Bashir, and ran a shop and a market stall, the court heard.
Mr Scamardella said Zahid was ‘at the centre of what happened’ to each victim.
The alleged abuse took place between February 2001 and April 2006.
Mr Scamardella told the jury there was a ‘pattern in this case that is common to almost every example’ of child sexual exploitation.
He said: ‘The crimes committed by grooming gangs span the entire spectrum of sexual offending.
‘Often beginning with non-penetrative touching over or under clothing which then progresses to forced oral sex and full penetrative sexual intercourse. Rape in other words.
‘The unique feature of child sexual exploitation is that the children are coerced, controlled, groomed and manipulated into sexual activity.’
He said offenders in these cases were ‘cunning’ and would appear affectionate and kind to those they intend to exploit.
‘At the heart of that very deliberate manipulation tactic, is an imbalance of power’, the prosecutor added.
‘History demonstrates that exploited children are often already vulnerable, with childhoods characterised by neglect, substance misuse and domestic violence.’
The prosecutor said co-defendant Roheez Khan was known as Raja and Cockeyed Taz, although jurors were told he didn’t accept having that second nickname.
Jurors were told he had previously faced a court accused of sexually abusing a girl, and was convicted in 2013.
Another defendant, taxi driver Mohammed Shahzad, was said to have the nickname Zero, which he denies.
Arfan Khan, was known as ‘Affy’ or ‘Big Affy’, although he denies ever having the latter nickname. The court heard Khan was a taxi driver and radio operator.
Mohammed Zahid, of Crumpsall, Manchester, is charged with ten counts of rape, four counts of indecency with a child, six counts of procuring a child for sex.
Mushtaq Ahmed, 66, of Oldham, is charged with four rapes, four counts of indecency with a child and procuring a girl for unlawful sex.
Kasir Bashir, 50, of Oldham, is charged with two rapes and two counts of indecency with a child.
Naheem Akram, 48, of Rochdale, is charged with 11 rapes, indecency with a child, assault by penetration, indecent assault, conspiracy to indecency with a child and conspiracy to cause a child to engage in sexual activity.
Mohammed Shazad, 43, of Rochdale, is charged with eight rapes, indecency with a child, assault by penetration, indecent assault, conspiracy to indecency with a child and conspiracy to cause a child to engage in sexual activity.
Nisar Hussain, 40, of Rochdale, is charged with four rapes, indecent assault, assault by penetration, conspiracy to indecency with a child and conspiracy to cause a child to engage in sexual activity.
Arfan Khan, 40, of Rochdale, is charged with two rapes, conspiracy to indecency with a child and conspiracy to cause a child to engage in sexual activity.
Roheez Khan, 39, of Rochdale, is charged with one rape.
They all deny the charges. The trial continues.
