Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
May Bulman

Rotherham child sex exploitation: Eight men jailed for up to 19 years over apos;degrading and violentapos; acts

Eight men have been jailed for up to 19 years for sexually exploiting teenage girls in Rotherham.

The eight men were sentenced after the court heard they “sexualised” their victims and, in some instances, subjected them to acts of a “degrading and violent nature”.

They were convicted on 17 October after the jury found them guilty of all 19 charges including rape and false imprisonment.

One victim, now 27, told police and their MP and then home secretary David Blunkett about the abuse, before her family eventually moved to Spain to get away from the men.

The court heard this victim had gone to the police in 2003, saying she had been repeatedly raped by Sageer Hussain when she was 13.

Judge Sarah Wright, who jailed Mr Hussain for 19 years, said he had conducted a “campaign of violent rape” against the vulnerable 13-year-old.

The men jailed on Friday were Sageer Hussain, 30; Mohammed Whied, 32; Ishtiaq Khaliq, 33; Waleed Ali, 34; Asif Ali, 30; Masoued Malik, 32; Basharat Hussain, 40; and Naeem Rafiq, 33.

The National Crime Agency has since said it is separately investigating more than 11,100 lines of inquiry relating to non-familial child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2003.

Professor Alexis Jay's 2014 inquiry, commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council, found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in the town between 1997 and 2013.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.