Four men have been jailed for more than 22 years in total after sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl who was ‘passed around like a piece of meat’, sold for sex and raped.
The Asian grooming gang from Telford forced their victim to perform sex acts in a churchyard, raped her above a shop on a filthy mattress, and violently abused her when she tried to refuse their advances, a court heard.
In all, five men went on trial at Birmingham Crown Court, leading to convictions for four of the defendants while another was cleared.
Sentencing the defendants on Thursday, Judge Melbourne Inman QC told the defendants: ‘Each of you knew this girl was utterly defenceless and was being used as a sex object by others.’
Addressing the ring-leader Mohammed Ali Sultan, he said: ‘At the relevant time, the victim was very vulnerable. The evidence is she lost her father in April, 2001.
Pictured L-R: Mohammed Ali Sultan, Nazam Akhtar, Amjad Hussain, Mohammad Rizwan and Shafiq Younas
Shafiq Younas, 35 (left) was convicted of indecent assault and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. Amjad Hussain (right) who was found guilty of a single count of indecent assault but cleared of a similar offence, was jailed for four-and-a-half years
‘In the months following, she fell victim to another man who abused her, raped her and other men repeatedly abused her.
‘You, Sultan, became aware of her vulnerability and her helpless position, and when the other man who controlled her left, you took control of her yourself.
‘At the time, you were only 18 months older than she was. You were 15 or 16 yourself.
‘By then she was so vulnerable she submitted to your demands.
‘The victim was clearly extremely frightened of you, and you exercised significant control over her.
‘Sometimes you reinforced your control by a slap or her hair being pulled to ensure obedience.
‘She described how you pulled off her lower clothing and raped her in the back of a car.
‘Your control caused others to commit sexual offences against her.
‘It’s clear on the evidence you told the victim to perform sexual acts with your associates.’
The woman, who is now an adult, said the abuse started when she was 12 but lasted until her mid-teens after she was befriended by a man named Tanveer Ahmed.
Mohammed Ali Sultan, 33, formerly of Telford, was convicted of rape and three counts of indecent assault. Mohammad Rizwan, 37, of Telford, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault and caged for five-and-a-half years
She claimed she was traded between men and forced to perform sex acts in a churchyard and raped above a takeaway shop on a dirty mattress in Telford, Shropshire.
Mohammed Ali Sultan, 33, formerly of Telford, was convicted of rape and three counts of indecent assault at Birmingham Crown Court.
Today, he was jailed for eight years with an extended licence period of two years and made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Sultan was also slapped with a restraining order preventing him from having contact with the victim indefinitely.
He already has previous convictions, in 2012 and 2015, for similar offences against young girls and an 18-year-old.
The current sentence will run consecutively to a six-year sentence he is already serving, giving a total of 14 years with an extended licence period of two years.
Mohammad Rizwan, 37, of Telford, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault and caged for five-and-a-half years.
Nazam Akhtar, 35, arriving at Birmingham Crown Court, was cleared of an allegation he raped the girl
Shafiq Younas, 35 of Wellington, Shrops., was convicted of indecent assault and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.
Amjad Hussain, 38, of Telford, who was found guilty of a single count of indecent assault but cleared of a similar offence, was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
A fifth defendant, Nazam Akhtar, 35, of Wellington, was cleared of rape.
The four defendants remained emotionless in the dock during the hearing.
Opening the trial, Michelle Heeley QC had said: ‘This case involves the sexual exploitation of a young girl, a girl passed around like a piece of meat for the sexual gratification of several young men, some of whom are in the dock.
‘Each of these defendants deny that they in any way abused anyone.
‘The prosecution say, having heard the evidence, you can be sure they did.’
Jurors were told that the vulnerable victim was sold for sex, first by a man named Tanveer Ahmed, who had ‘befriended her’ during a low point in her life.
Ahmed, who did takeaway deliveries at Perfect Pizza in the town, was not on trial alongside the other defendants, having been deported to Pakistan for ‘unrelated offences’, the court heard.
Jurors did not hear how Ahmed, then 40 and formerly of Urban Gardens, in Wellington, was jailed for two-and-a-half years after admitting a charge of controlling a child prostitute as part of a series of court cases that ended in 2013.
He was one of seven men jailed after an investigation into a child prostitution ring in Telford, as part of West Mercia Police’s Operation Chalice inquiry.
On Tuesday, Ali Sultan was unanimously convicted of rape and three counts of indecent assault
Later, the victim came into contact with the first defendant, Mohammed Ali Sultan, 33, formerly of Telford, whom she said also sold her for sex, raped and abused her.
The jury was told that he already had convictions in both 2012 and 2015 for ‘similar offences against young girls’.
Ali Sultan was also among the seven men originally convicted following the Chalice investigation into the abuse and prostitution of children in Telford.
During the trial, jurors watched video-recorded interviews with the victim, in which she told detectives of enduring two years of ‘hell’ and of repeatedly contemplating taking her own life as she was traded to different men for ‘months and months’.
She claimed to have been taken to a flat above the Perfect Pizza shop ‘to have sex with Asians’, and ‘lost count’ of the number of men at whose hands she suffered abuse.
The woman said her family knew nothing at the time but added that ‘people at school’ somehow found out, through rumour.
‘I used to get called p***-s*****r,’ she said.
‘There used to be like actions, with their hand, hand by their mouth, suggesting b*****s.’
She added: ‘Even the teachers heard people saying these things and not one teacher pulled me to the side and asked me if things were all right.
‘I was too scared to go and ask for help. But nobody said a word.’
She told police that, years after the abuse ended, she recognised photos of Ali Sultan and Ahmed from press reports on the Telford sex ring.
Asked why she did not tell anyone about exactly what happened until years later, she replied: ‘I think I had just had enough, I kept it to myself for all these years.
The woman told Birmingham Crown Court how she was abused and raped by countless men when she was a child
‘Why should somebody be able to do those things and get away with it?
‘Still to this day it goes through my head, all the time.’
As an adult, she later picked out each of the five men at police identification parades.
On Tuesday, Ali Sultan was unanimously convicted of rape and three counts of indecent assault.
During the trial, jurors were directed to find him not guilty of another rape charge after the defence presented evidence he was in Pakistan at the time the alleged offence took place.
Co-defendant Mohammad Rizwan, 37, of Telford, was also convicted of two counts of indecent assault.
Rizwan, who alleged he had a consensual sexual relationship with the victim when she was 17, saved the girl’s phone number under the contact name ‘b*****b2’, jurors heard.
On Wednesday, the jury also found co-accused Shafiq Younas, 35, of Wellington, near Telford, guilty of indecently assaulting the victim in a churchyard.
Amjad Hussain, 38, of Leegomery, Telford – unanimously convicted of a single count of indecent assault on Tuesday – was cleared by jurors, on Wednesday, of another similar offence.
Jurors also cleared Nazam Akhtar, 35, of Wellington, of raping the girl in the back of a car.