Huddersfield grooming gang

Last updated

The Huddersfield grooming gang was a group of men who were convicted of sexual offences against girls in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. It is the largest gang ever convicted for sexual abuse in the United Kingdom. The offences took place between 2004 and 2011, and the men were charged following the Operation Tendersea inquiry by the police. The trials began in April 2017 and 20 men were convicted in 2018 in three separate trials. [1] Since then, further men have been convicted in a series of trials, bringing the total number of perpetrators convicted to 41 by August 2021. [2] [3]

Contents

A report released in June 2019 indicated that 15 of the 22 females involved were known to children's services. Although there was "sufficient evidence" that two girls were being sexually exploited, one as early as 2007, no action was taken by the Kirklees Children's Services. [4]

Trials

Twenty-seven men were accused of sexual offences including rape and trafficking against eighteen girls aged between 11 and 17, with two further women accused of child neglect. [5] Due to the large number of defendants, the court proceedings against them were conducted in three separate trials. Reporting restrictions on the trial were imposed in November 2017 under the 1981 Contempt of Court Act to avoid prejudice on subsequent trials. [6]

However, the reporting restrictions were criticised by the far-right, who claimed that it was a cover-up as the defendants were Asian and Muslims, and that it amounted to "state censorship". [7] [8] Right-wing activist Tommy Robinson live-streamed video from outside the court on Facebook during the second of the trials, filmed some of the accused and talked about Muslims and "jihad rape gangs", which led to his arrest and prosecution for contempt of court. [9] [8]

Twenty men were convicted in October 2018 of 120 offenses of rape and abuse against fifteen girls, and sentenced to a total of 221 years. [10] Reporting restrictions on the trials were partially lifted in October 2018. [1] Sixteen of the gang were sentenced in October 2018, the remaining four were sentenced in November 2018. [11] [12] One of the convicted gang members, Faisal Nadeem, appealed against the sentence arguing that Robinson's live video had prejudiced the trial, but his permission to appeal was refused by a Court of Appeal judge. [13]

Six separate trials had been held by February 2020, with 34 men convicted in total. [2] Another man was convicted in April 2020. [3]

Perpetrators

A total of 29 people were arrested and charged by March 2017 under Operation Tendersea. [6] Most of the gang were Pakistani and were from the areas of Huddersfield, Sheffield, Bradford and Dewsbury. [6] The ringleader of the gang, however, was Amere Singh Dhaliwal, [14] a Sikh man. [15] He is a married father of two children and known by the nickname "Prestos". [6] [14]

In total 15 girls were abused. The first allegations to be taken seriously were made in 2011 when a victim wrote a letter to a judge about the abuse although no formal complaint was lodged at the time. A formal complaint was made in 2013 by another victim. [6] Twenty of the accused were first convicted on 19 October 2018 of 120 offences against the 15 girls. [1] One of the gang members, Sajid Hussain, fled during the trial and was sentenced in his absence. [16] Two more men were sentenced in June 2019. Mohammed Akram was previously convicted and had his sentenced increased whilst Usman Khalid was sentenced to five years. [17] A further five men were jailed in November 2019. Three of the men were not named for legal reasons whilst Umar Zaman fled to Pakistan and was sentenced in his absence. [18] [19] Zaman was later arrested and jailed when he tried to return to the UK in 2022. [20] Seven more men were convicted in February 2020. [21] [22] A man was convicted in April 2020 along with another previously unnamed man, Shaqeel Hussain, who was sentenced to a further 12 months. [3] Three men were sentenced in July 2021 for rape and grooming offences dating back to the 1990's. [23] Three more men were sentenced in August 2021 whilst another man was further sentenced. [24] [25] [26]

List of convicted perpetrators
NameAgeSentence
Amere Singh Dhaliwal35Life with a minimum term of 18 years
Irfan Ahmed348 years
Zahid Hassan2939 years (increased from 18 years)
Mohammed Kammer3423 years 6 months (increased from 16 years)
Mohammed Rizwan Aslam3115 years
Abdul Rehman3119 years 9 months (increased from 16 years)
Raj Singh Barsran3417 years
Nahman Mohammed3222 years (increased from 15 years)
Mansoor Akhtar278 years
Wiqas Mahmud3821 years 3 months (increased from 15 years)
Nasarat Hussain3019 years (increased from 17 years)
Sajid Hussain3317 years
Mohammed Irfraz306 years
Faisal Nadeem3212 years
Mohammed Azeem3318 years
Manzoor Hassan3819 years (increased from 5 years)
Mohammed Akram3322 years (increased from 17 years)
Niaz Ahmed545 years
Asif Bashir3315 years (increased from 11 years)
Mohammed Imran Ibrar348 years (increased from 3 years)
Usman Khalid315 years
Umar Zaman318 years 8 months (increased from 8 years) [20]
Samuel Fikru328 years
Banaris Hussain3610 years
Banaras Hussain399 years 6 months
Usman Ali348 years
Abdul Majid3511 years
Gul Riaz4315 years
Manzoor Akhtar314 years 6 months
Shaqeel Hussain369 years (increased from 8 years)
Talish Ahmed4110 years
Mohammed Akram4413 years
Banaras Hussain4418 years
Saqib Raheel3410 years 6 months
Sholan James306 years
Rashid Iqbal4612 years
Unnamed Man304 years
Unnamed Man378 years
Unnamed Man3214 years
Unnamed Man328 years
Unnamed Man387 years

Remarks by Sajid Javid

After the reporting restrictions were lifted, the Conservative Home Secretary Sajid Javid sent out a tweet stating: "These sick Asian paedophiles are finally facing justice. I want to commend the bravery of the victims. For too long, they were ignored. Not on my watch. There will be no no-go areas." [27] His referencing of the ethnic heritage of the offenders was strongly condemned by senior Labour politicians Diane Abbott, Sadiq Khan and David Lammy, who alleged that he was seeking "to pin the blame on [...] one group" and pandering to the far-right. [27] In a later interview with Sky News, Javid accused his critics of being "oversensitive" and refused to apologise or withdraw his comment, saying: "When I made that comment I was stating the facts, and the sad truth is that if you look at recent high-profile convictions of gang-based child sexual exploitation there is a majority of people that come from Pakistani heritage backgrounds—that's plain for everyone to see." [28]

In December 2020, a report by the Home Office stated that a number of studies have indicated an over-representation of Asian and Black offenders in group-based child sexual exploitation. Most of the same studies show that the majority of offenders are White. The Home Office report also stated the research on offender ethnicity is limited, and tends to rely on poor quality data. It is therefore difficult to draw conclusions about differences in ethnicity of offenders; it is likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending. [29] [30] [31]

See also

Related Research Articles

The relationship between race and crime in the United Kingdom is the subject of academic studies, government surveys, media coverage, and public concern. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, section 95, the government collects annual statistics based on race and crime.

The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved underage teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child in May 2012. This resulted in Greater Manchester Police launching Operation Doublet and other operations to investigate further claims of abuse. As of January 2024 a total of 42 men had been convicted resulting in jail sentences totalling 432 years. Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the initial police investigation. The men were British Pakistanis, which led to discussion on whether the failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities' fear of being accused of racial prejudice. The girls were mainly White British.

The Derby child sex abuse ring was a group of men who sexually abused up to a hundred girls in Derby, England. In 2010, after an undercover investigation by Derbyshire police, members of the ring were charged with 75 offences relating to 26 girls. Nine of the 13 accused were convicted of grooming and raping girls between 12 and 18 years old. The attacks provoked fierce discussion about race and sexual exploitation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal</span> Sexual abuse scandal in Rotherham, England

The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal consists of the organised child sexual abuse that occurred in the town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Northern England from the late 1980s until 2013 and the failure of local authorities to act on reports of the abuse throughout most of that period. Researcher Angie Heal, who was hired by local officials and warned them about child exploitation occurring between 2002 and 2007, has since described it as the "biggest child protection scandal in UK history", with one report estimating that 1,400 girls were abused by "grooming gangs" between 1997 and 2013. Evidence of the abuse was first noted in the early 1990s, when care home managers investigated reports that children in their care were being picked up by taxi drivers. From at least 2001, multiple reports passed names of alleged perpetrators, several from one family, to the police and Rotherham Council. The first group conviction took place in 2010, when five British-Pakistani men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 12–16.

The Oxford child sex abuse ring was an alleged group of 22 men who were convicted of various sexual offences against underage girls in the English city of Oxford between 1998 and 2012. Thames Valley Police launched Operation Bullfinch in May 2011 to investigate allegations of historical sexual abuse, leading to ten men being convicted. Upon further allegations in 2015, Thames Valley Police then launched Operation Silk, resulting in ten more different men being convicted and Operation Spur which resulted in two more convictions. The term itself and the investigation has been heavily criticized by Muslims and left wing members for being highly racially motivated and Islamophobic. Some have put the blame on media and the police for ignoring such crimes if they really happened for so long Some have even questioned the narrative of grooming gangs as similar events elsewhere in India and Nigeria have instead been blamed as a conspiracy by right-wing Hindus and Christians.

The Telford child sexual exploitation scandal is an ongoing scandal spanning over several decades in the United Kingdom involving a group of Pakistani men who were convicted of engaging in sexual contact with local female minors between 2007 and 2009 in Telford in the English county of Shropshire. While media reports had suggested there were 100 or more victims and around 200 suspects, the Sunday Mirror reported in March 2018 that up to 1,000 may have been affected, with some even murdered, in incidents dating back to the 1970s. Social workers and police cast doubt on this report, denying that Telford had a "discernible problem compared to other towns".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom</span>

Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom has been reported in the country throughout its history. In about 90% of cases the abuser is a person known to the child. However, cases during the second half of the twentieth century, involving religious institutions, schools, popular entertainers, politicians, military personnel, and other officials, have been revealed and widely publicised since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Child sexual abuse rings in numerous towns and cities across the UK have also drawn considerable attention.

Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into the prevalence, causes and social implications.

The Bristol child sex abuse ring was a group of 13 men who committed sexual offences against underage teenage girls in Bristol, in Southwestern England. In November 2014, they were convicted of offences including rape, paying a child for sex, causing or inciting child prostitution, sexual acts with children and sex trafficking.

The Peterborough sex abuse case involved 10 men who committed sexual offences against under-aged girls, some as young as 12, in the English city of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. In a series of trials in 2014 and 2015, they were found guilty of rape, child prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Police had been alerted by the Rotherham and Rochdale child abuse cases to the possibility of abuse taking place.

The Banbury child sex abuse ring was a group of six men who committed serious sexual offences against under-aged girls in the English town of Banbury, Oxfordshire. In March 2015, they were found guilty of offences including rape and sexual activity with a child over a period extending from 2009 to 2014. Police in Banbury had drawn on the lessons of Operation Bullfinch, which targeted sexual abuse in nearby Oxford.

The Keighley child sex abuse ring was a group of twelve men who committed serious sexual offences against two under-aged girls in the English town of Keighley and city of Bradford, West Yorkshire. In December 2015, they were found guilty of rape and other forms of sexual abuse by a unanimous jury verdict at Bradford Crown Court. They were sentenced in February 2016 to a total of 130 years in jail. The main victim, who had been targeted by ten of the men, was aged between 13 and 14 at the time of the attacks between 2011 and 2012.

The Halifax child sex abuse ring was a group of men who committed serious sexual offences against under-aged girls in the English town of Halifax and city of Bradford, West Yorkshire. It was the largest child sexual exploitation investigation in the United Kingdom. In 2016, the perpetrators were found guilty of rape and other crimes in several separate trials at Leeds Crown Court. In total, as many as a hundred men may have been involved in child abuse. Twenty-five suspects were charged by West Yorkshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service and 18 of these were found guilty, totalling over 175 years of prison time. A further nine men were convicted in February 2019 for grooming two underage girls in Bradford and sentenced to over 130 years in prison. The majority of those charged and later convicted come from the town's Asian community; there were fears that their arrests might impact race relations in the town.

The Newcastle sex abuse ring were a gang of seventeen men and a woman who sexually abused adolescent girls and young women from 2010 to 2014 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, after plying them with alcohol and drugs. The men were of Albanian, Kurdish, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, Eastern European and Pakistani heritage who were aged between 27 and 44. A British man of Indian heritage was also charged for conspiracy to incite prostitution and supplying drugs to a victim. The victims ranged in age from 13 to 25.

In 2010, police received a report of a child sex ring in Norwich, England. The recurring crimes spanned 10 years and all victims, two boys and three girls, were younger than 13. The perpetrators organized sex parties where adults played card games to decide who would abuse which child. Three members of the gang received significant prison sentences, including ringleader Marie Black, who was jailed for life. Black's sentence made her "one of the UK's most notorious paedophiles."

Operation Voicer was a major police investigation into serious sexual offences against pre-school aged children and infants across England, launched in 2014. The perpetrators groomed the families of the young victims, in some cases before the babies were even born. By September 2015, seven offenders were jailed, 28 further suspects had been arrested, three victims were identified, and 33 children were safeguarded. Ten offenders received significant prison sentences.

The Manchester child sex abuse ring was a group of men who committed serious sexual offences against under-aged girls in Manchester, England, between 2016 and 2018. Four members were jailed in September 2019, while others evaded arrest by fleeing the country.

In October 2019, a 61 year-old man from South Wales was sentenced for 33 years for serious sexual offences against three of his daughters, spanning 20 years, one of whom was also his granddaughter. He frequently raped his daughters from the ages of 12, 13, or 14, fathering six of his own grandchildren with one. He also arranged for other men to rape his daughters.

Amberdale children's home was a council run home in Stapleford in Nottinghamshire, England, where staff committed serious sexual offences against girls and boys in the 1980s. Some staff received significant prison sentences.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Huddersfield grooming: Twenty guilty of campaign of rape and abuse". BBC. 19 October 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Seven men convicted of grooming teenage girls in Huddersfield". The Guardian. PA Media. 18 February 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 Beever, Susie (27 April 2020). "Child sex offenders latest to be jailed as part of Huddersfield grooming gang investigation". Yorkshire Post. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  4. ↑ "Chances 'lost' to break Huddersfield child abuse sex ring". BBC. 10 June 2019.
  5. ↑ "Huddersfield child sex inquiry sees 29 in court". BBC. 12 April 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Wright, Oliver (19 October 2018). "Huddersfield grooming: How the West Yorkshire gang operated". BBC.
  7. ↑ Powell, Tom (19 October 2018). "Huddersfield grooming gang: How Tommy Robinson 'jeopardised sex abuse trial'". The Evening Standard.
  8. 1 2 Perraudin, Frances (29 May 2018). "EDL founder Tommy Robinson jailed for contempt of court". The Guardian.
  9. ↑ Dearden, Lizzie (19 October 2018). "Tommy Robinson could have caused Huddersfield grooming trials to collapse and child rapists go free". The Independent.
  10. ↑ Davidson, Tom (19 October 2018). "Huddersfield grooming gang whose court cases were protested by Tommy Robinson jailed for total 221 years". Mirrors.
  11. ↑ Halliday, Josh (19 October 2018). "Huddersfield grooming gang jailed for abusing vulnerable girls". The Guardian.
  12. ↑ Halliday, Josh (1 November 2018). "Huddersfield grooming gang: four more jailed for abusing girls". The Guardian.
  13. ↑ Dearden, Lizzie (9 July 2019). "Tommy Robinson caused Huddersfield grooming gang member to appeal conviction, court ruling reveals". The Independent.
  14. 1 2 Dearden, Lizzie (19 October 2018). "Huddersfield grooming gang: Men convicted of sexually abusing vulnerable girls and jailed for 220 years". The Independent.
  15. ↑ Jhutti-Johal, J.; Singh, H. (2019). Racialization, Islamophobia and Mistaken Identity: The Sikh Experience. Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics. Taylor & Francis. p. 104. ISBN   978-1-351-13884-0 . Retrieved 1 January 2023.Quote: "In 2018, members of a 20-strong grooming gang in Huddersfield were jailed, and there were two Sikhs amongst them: Amere Singh Dhaliwal and Raj Singh Basran. Dhaliwal caused the most outrage within the Sikh community because at the time of the trial, he appeared as a turban-wearing, initiated Sikh. Some members of the community falsely suggested he was a Muslim who had converted to Sikhism. They made this claim to deflect negative attention away from the Sikh community, but also to strengthen their narrative that Muslim men were adopting the Sikh identity to harm the community".
  16. ↑ Finnegan, Stephanie (4 November 2018). "Huddersfield grooming gang victims don't feel safe with rapist still at large". Examiner Live.
  17. ↑ Finnegan, Stephanie (21 June 2019). "Two men jailed after child in care was passed around Huddersfield grooming gang". huddersfieldexaminer. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  18. ↑ "Five men jailed over 'vile and wicked 'child abuse". 1 November 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  19. ↑ "Child rapist shouts 'miscarriage' as he is jailed for 10 years". Metro. 4 November 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  20. 1 2 "Grooming gang member who fled to Pakistan arrested and jailed". ITV News. 16 June 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
  21. ↑ "Huddersfield grooming: Seven convicted of rape and sex assault". BBC. 19 February 2020.
  22. ↑ "Huddersfield grooming: 'Predatory men' jailed for rape". BBC. 19 February 2020.
  23. ↑ "Three Huddersfield men jailed for raping teenage girl". BBC News. 16 July 2021. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  24. ↑ Bell, Guy (19 August 2021). "Snivelling Huddersfield rapist has audacity to moan 'I'm a broken man'". YorkshireLive. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
  25. ↑ "Sex Offender Jailed In Latest Conviction in Long Running Huddersfield Operation". West Yorkshire Police. 24 August 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  26. ↑ "Manzoor Hassan: Man jailed for raping girl he sold for sex". BBC News. 23 September 2021. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
  27. 1 2 "Sajid Javid lambasted for 'Asian paedophiles' tweet". The Guardian. 20 October 2018.
  28. ↑ "Javid: People offended by 'Asian' paedophile remark 'oversensitive'". Sky News. 20 October 2018.
  29. ↑ "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offending" (PDF). Home Office . December 2020.
  30. ↑ Grierson, Jamie (15 December 2020). "Most child sexual abuse gangs made up of white men, Home Office report says". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  31. ↑ Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (19 December 2020). "A new Home Office report admits grooming gangs are not a 'Muslim problem". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 December 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.