Wednesday, 15 May 2013


Asian grooming gang convicted of appalling acts of depravity on children

Police and social services have apologised for a litany of failings and missed opportunities that allowed a gang of Asian men to carry out years of appalling abuse against a group of vulnerable young girls in Oxford.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10057543/Asian-grooming-gang-convicted-of-appalling-acts-of-depravity-on-children.html
By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent
9:58PM BST 14 May 2013

Thames Valley Police were aware of allegations of rape and sexual assault against teenagers on at least four occasions, but failed to pursue the investigations when the terrified victims withdrew their complaints.
Today seven men of Asian or North African origin were found guilty of grooming six vulnerable white girls before putting them through a “living hell” during which they were forced to commit acts of “extreme depravity”.
In a case that bears harrowing similarities to the Rochdale grooming scandal, carefully chosen victims were showered with gifts and plied with alcohol and drugs before being subjected to years of appalling abuse.
The gang recruited its victims from the Oxford area between May 2004 and January last year, deliberately targeting vulnerable girls.
Some were spotted drinking or playing truant along the city's Cowley Road, while others were chosen because they were living in care homes.
Once under their control the abusers forced the girls to have sex using threats of extreme violence.
Some were gang raped, while others were prostituted to men who would travel from all parts of UK to have sex with them.
 Left to right, top: Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Kamar Jamil, Assad Hussain. Bottom: Mohammed Karrar, Bassam Karrar and Zeeshan Ahmed Photo: PA
If they did not comply they were beaten and burned with cigarettes while one girl was even branded with her abusers’ initials.
When one victim fell pregnant at the age of 12 she was forced to undergo a dangerous backstreet abortion.
Another girl was abused with a string of bizarre sex toys to 'prepare' her for one of the gang rapes.
Police were first alerted to the activities of the grooming ring in 2006 when a 14-year-old girl complained that she had been held against her will by two Asian men and forced to take drugs.
Seven months later the same girl was found by officers in an Oxford park complaining that she had been forced to perform a sex act on one of the defendants, Akhtar Dogar.
Dogar was interviewed by police but denied raping the girl and the case was dropped when the girl withdrew her complaint.
The same year another 14-year-old girl informed police she had been forced to have sex with several different men, but again the case was dropped when she became too scared to press charges.
Again in 2006 police were called to a guest house in Oxford after a man staying there dialled 999 to report that he feared a prostitute was being beaten up in an adjoining room.
When police arrived they found a 14-year-old girl cowering in the basement and complaining that had been raped and beaten.
She too eventually withdrew her complaint and the case was dropped.
Social workers also claimed they alerted police to concerns about one of the victims who regularly ran away from her care home and was often seen in the company of older Asian men.
A serious case review was announced while Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire County Council apologised for their failure to spot the pattern earlier.
Detective Chief Superintendent 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."
Joanna Simons, the chief executive of Oxfordshire County Council also apologised to the victims for the numerous failings in the case.
She 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.
"We did not know the nature of what was happening - the devious nature of such depravity. We did not know we were dealing with a gang."
But Jon Brown of the NSPCC said the girls had been let down by those who were supposed to be looking after them.
He said: “The Oxford grooming trial has been a grim reminder that even though we are living in the 21st century some people have retained medieval attitudes towards young girls. The barbaric treatment of the victims in this case was depraved, almost beyond imagination and must never be allowed to happen again.”
He added: “The girls were let down by those who were meant to care for them and obvious signs of abuse were missed. Their treatment was unacceptable. We must have tougher action against such predatory sex offenders who deliberately target the most vulnerable children.”
The case is the latest in a string of high profile trials involving Asian gangs who have convicted of targeting and abusing vulnerable white girls.
Last May eight men of Pakistani origin and one Afghan were convicted of trafficking and raping girls in the Rochdale area.
Five Asian men were also jailed in 2010 after being convicted of grooming girls as young as 12 in the Rotherham area.
Just last week a gang of Asian men who groomed vulnerable white girls in Shropshire between 2006 and 2009 were jailed for more than 50-years.
Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said it was time for the Muslim community to educate people about the seriousness of abuse and urge people with information to come forward to the authorities.
He said: “The majority of Asians of all backgrounds abhor these crimes, these criminals have brought shame on themselves and their families and the wider Asian communities.
“I think while there was a stage of denial a few years ago, that this could be going on in our community, I think we have got past that now and the next stage will be reporting matters to police, social services and whoever.”
He added: “I think Imams are going to be a key player, we have to use our faith as Muslims or Hindus or Sikhs to actually tell how horrific these crimes are and how forbidden they are in our faith.
“I see it as our Islamic duty that if people are presented with evidence about this that they report it to the police.”
Dr Hojjat Ramzey an Imam in Oxford also said it was time for the Muslim community to face the problem head on.
He said: “There is an issue and we cannot put it under the carpet. It is our responsibility, the community of the Muslims and the non-Muslims to get together they should get together to rectify these sort of evil things out of our society.”
Two sets of brothers, Akhtar Dogar, 32, and Anjum Dogar, 31, and Mohammed Karrar, 38, and Bassam Karrar, 33, were convicted along with Kamar Jamil, 27, Assad Hussain, 32, and Zeeshan Ahmed, 27.
Fighting broke out in the dock at the Old Bailey after two other defendants - Mohammed Hussain, 25, and a man who cannot be named for legal reasons - were cleared. Zeeshan Ahmed struck out at Mohammed Hussain before being bundled out of the dock by officers.

Posted by Britannia Radio at 20:01