Oxford
14 May 2013 Last updated at 17:48 GMT
Oxford exploitation trial: Guilty verdicts over child rapes
Seven members of a sex grooming ring have been convicted of abusing children
from Oxford.
An Old Bailey jury heard six girls were drugged and suffered sadistic abuse
while aged between 11 and 15.
The court heard victims were plied with alcohol and drugs
before being forced to perform sex acts. Some had also been beaten,
burnt and threatened.
Nine men had denied charges including rape, arranging child prostitution and
trafficking between 2004 and 2012.
Two were acquitted of all charges.
The judge told the guilty men: "You have been convicted of
the most serious offences and long custodial sentences are inevitable."
They are due to be sentenced on 26 June.Pain and humiliation
The abuse began in Oxford but some of the victims would be
later taken around the country to be offered to other men who were in
contact with the gang.
The court heard how the men identified vulnerable girls for
abuse then groomed each one of them until they were under the control of the
gang.
Acts of physical and sexual violence escalated into using objects to cause pain
and humiliation.
The court heard girls were tied up, burnt, suffocated, bitten, scratched and
urinated upon.
Jurors were told most of the victims chose to take vast
quantities of hard drugs to deaden their senses, particularly when they
knew they were being hired out to a large group of men for gang abuse
sessions that could go on for days.
The victims would return to Oxford bleeding, injured and carrying
sexually-transmitted diseases.
One of the victims described being plied with hard drugs and
forced to have sex with strangers while being filmed at the age of 13.
On one occasion she was given so much crack cocaine she could not breathe and
was rushed to hospital.
Another, who was groomed at the age of 11, said she fell in love with Mohammed
Karrar who raped her, beat her
with a baseball bat and forced her to have an illegal back-room abortion when
she was 12-years-old.
She said of her abuse: "At the time I thought it was my
choice and it was fine, but years on I can see I never had a choice. I
said 'no' but I didn't have a say.
"It was literally like a normal relationship but I know now it isn't a normal
relationship. I was a child.
"He told me he loved me. He said he would take me to Saudi Arabia when I was 15
and marry me. I believed him at the time."
A number of opportunities to catch members of the gang are
believed to have been missed and prosecutors, the police and social
services have apologised for any failings.Scuffle in court
The jury at the Old Bailey considered the evidence for two-and-a-half days and
returned the following verdicts.
* Kamar Jamil was found guilty of five counts of rape, two counts of
conspiracy to rape and one count of facilitating child prostitution.
* Akhtar Dogar was found guilty of five counts of rape, three
counts of conspiracy to rape, two counts of child prostitution and one
count of trafficking.
* Anjum Dogar was found guilty of four counts of rape, two counts of
child prostitution, two counts of conspiracy to rape and one count
of trafficking.
* Assad Hussain was found not guilty of rape and guilty of two counts
of sex with a child.
* Mohammed Karrar was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to rape,
three counts of rape of a child, one count of using an instrument to procure
miscarriage, two counts of trafficking, one count of
assault of a child by penetration, one count of child prostitution, one count
of rape and one count of supplying a class A drug.
* Bassam Karrar was found guilty of two counts of rape, one count of
conspiracy to rape a child, one count of rape of a child, one count
of child prostitution, one count of trafficking and one count of
conspiracy to rape.
* Zeeshan Ahmed was found guilty of two counts of sex with a child.
There was a scuffle in the dock as Ahmed struck out at Mohammed Hussain when he
was cleared of the charges against him.
Mr Hussain was found not guilty of three counts of sex with a child.Sold for
sex
The Old Bailey was told the key members of the group used and
abused the six victims in a systematic and organised sex trafficking
ring over eight years until their arrest in 2012.
The court heard how the men identified vulnerable girls for
abuse and then groomed each one of them until they were under the
control of the gang.
They were then each either abused by the men themselves, given
to their friends or offered at a price to others who were not on trial.
The youngest girl to be targeted was 11-years-old. The girls
were mostly chosen because their unsettled or troubled lives made them
easier to manipulate.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it would look again at its decision to take
no further action over allegations involving the girls between 2005 and 2006.
Baljit Ubhey, chief crown prosecutor for Thames and Chiltern, said: "I think we
could have been more proactive. Of four cases we
looked at, in three of those it's arguable we might have been able to do more.
"I think what these cases have highlighted is that they're
probably not isolated incidents and there's probably more of this
activity going on."'Deep regret'
One of the victims had complained to police twice but no one was charged.
A care home manager, who was later sacked, refused to pay her taxi fare when
she returned after running away and the 14-year-old was
driven back to Oxford where she was raped.
The court heard girls, who had been placed in care by
Oxfordshire County Council for their own protection, would frequently
abscond and were caught with older men by police.
Council chief executive Joanna Simons said: "We are incredibly sorry we were
not able to stop it any sooner.
"We were up against a gang of devious criminals. The girls thought they were
their friends."
Det Ch Supt Rob Mason said: "Thames Valley Police and
Oxfordshire County Council social services deeply regret that this
activity wasn't identified sooner and that we were too reliant on
victims supporting criminal proceedings and that they suffered a
terrible ordeal."
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