Rochdale grooming gang trial COLLAPSES after jury discharged
Rochdale whistleblower Maggie Oliver explains why Keir Starmer ‘doesn’t want’ grooming gangs
GB News
A Rochdale grooming gang trial has collapsed after its jury was discharged for legal reasons.
The eight defendants - all accused of historical child sexual exploitation - have denied various alleged sexual offences.
The crimes against the accused were said to have been committed against two girls between 2001 and 2006.
The two complainants are said to have been targeted since they were 13.
Once a new jury has been selected, the trial will go ahead
PA
The prosecution began the case last week but its jury was discharged from the trial at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
Another jury will be chosen later for the future trial, and is expected to last three months.
Two of the defendants are from Oldham, while the rest are from Rochdale.
The defendants include: Mohammed Zahid, 64, of Station Road, Crumpsall; Naheem Akram, 48, of Manley, Road, Rochdale; Mohammed Shahzad, 43, of Beswicke Royds Street, Rochdale; Nisar Hussain, 43, of Newfield Close, Rochdale; Roheez Khan, 39, of Athole Street, Rochdale; Arfan Khan, 40, of Grouse Street, Rochdale; Mushtaq Ahmed, 66, of Corona Avenue, Oldham; and Kasir Bashir, 50, of Napier Street East, Oldham.
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The two girls became “sex slaves” for a gang of eight Asian men who raped and abused them “whenever and wherever they wanted”, the court heard.
The pair would be “passed around for sex, abused, degraded and then discarded” around the northern area of Rochdale, it has been alleged.
Prosecuting, Rossano Scamardella KC, said: “Through no fault of their own, the troubled backgrounds of the girls 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. That it was the two of them that were exploited in this way was not by chance.”
One of the defendants Roheez Khan at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court
GETTY
The alleged victims were said to have been hanging around groups of men at parks, wood, moorland, or the market or snooker hall in town, Scamardella said.
He claimed that the men would drive and pick the girls up and drop them off at a number of residential properties.
“These men preyed upon those vulnerabilities for their own perverted sexual gratification in the most humiliating and degrading way imaginable,” he added.
The men would allegedly groom the girls to “make them feel like grown-ups”, given alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.
The alleged sexual offences, claimed to have taken place between 2001 and 2006, include rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child.
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