Eighteen Convicted in Mostly Muslim Rape Gang, Police Paid Child Rapist Informant £10k

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Liam Deacon

Seventeen South Asian men and one Caucasian woman have been convicted of involvement in a mostly Muslim sex grooming gang operating in Newcastle, in the largest case of its kind since Rotherham and Rochdale.

The gang was found guilty of nearly 100 offences, including the rape and human trafficking of vulnerable women and girls. They preyed upon teenage girls with drugs and alcohol at sex parties known as “sessions”, Chronicle Live reports.

The police have come under strong criticism for paying almost £10,000 to a convicted child rapist to work as an informant in the case.

The victims were aged between 14 and 22 years old. They were passed around by their abusers and were sometimes said to be too intoxicated to even know what was happening to them.

One victim said she had been to 60 such “sessions”, the BBC reports. She spoke of seeing two older men at one of them with a woman who seemed “frightened and scared, like a slave”.

Jim Hope, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “These men systematically groomed and abused vulnerable teenage girls and young women over a number of years for their own sexual gratification.”

The police dubbed the investigation ‘Operation Shelter’, which formed part of the even larger ‘Operation Sanctuary’ into sexual exploitation in the North East. It involved 50 officers and spanned three and a half years.

Police handed out leaflets in the Newcastle area asking victims and witnesses to come forward. Such was the response, the operations have to be divided up and the number of defendants led to four separate trials, with the first commencing in September 2015.

‘Operation Shelter’ has so far resulted in 94 people being jailed for a total of 303 years and nine months.

“We have thrown the kitchen sink at this,” said Chief Cons Ashman. “A team of 50 officers have worked on this enquiry for almost three and a half years and continue to do so. We have not and will not stop.”

The force recruited the unnamed informant despite the fact he had been convicted in 2002 of drugging and raping a teenage schoolgirl and inviting another man to rape her. He infiltrated the rape gang and passed information to officers.

Chief Constable Steven Ashman defended the force’s actions, insisting dangerous men had been put behind bars.

 

He told the BBC: “In some cases, we have actually saved lives on the back of information that we have gained, and am I going to take that risk again? You’re damn right I’m going to.

“It’s inside the law, inside accepted policy and practice. I get that people might be quite shocked by it, but actually, this is the right thing to do.”

Andrew Norfolk, The Times journalist who is widely credited with breaking what has been described as a conspiracy of silence over the issue of Muslim grooming gangs, said:

“Here was a crime pattern that had existed for at least two decades from the very first day we ran our very first article, in January 2011, saying ‘here is this conspiracy of silence, in acknowledging this why are you not acknowledging that this pattern exists?’

“From that day one when we said is what is absolute, crucially, needed is research to understand why this pattern has put down such deep roots. That research is still not being carried out.”

Police said the defendants were of different backgrounds, including; Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Iranian, Iraqi, Kurdish, Turkish, Albanian, and Eastern European.

The men lived in various areas of Newcastle and were convicted of the following crimes, as reported by the Chronicle Live.

  • Habibur Rahim, 34: Convicted of two counts of conspiracy to incite prostitution for gain, human trafficking, and rape; two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation; and six counts of supplying drugs.
  • Abdul Sabe, 40: Conspiracy to traffic for sexual exploitation, conspiracy to incite prostitution for gain, conspiracy to sexual assault, and four drug offences.
  • Eisa Mousavi, 42: Three counts of rape, one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution, and three drug offences.
  • Carolann Gallon, 22: Convicted of three counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
  • Nashir Uddin, 35: One count of “digital penetration”, one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution for gain, and eight drug offences.
  • Mohammed Azram, 35: Convicted of one count of sexual assault, one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution for gain, and five counts of supplying and offering to supply drugs.
  • Taherul Alom, 32: Two counts of supplying drugs, one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution, one count of attempted sexual assault, and one drug offence.
  • Abdulhamid Minoyee, 34: One count of rape, one count of sexual assault, one count of supplying drugs.
  • Monjur Choudhury, 33: Convicted of one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution and two drug offences.
  • Prabhat Nelli, 33: One count of conspiracy to incite prostitution and two counts of supplying drugs,
  • Jahanger Zaman, 45: Convicted of one count of rape, one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution for gain, and one drug offence.
  • Mohammed Hassan Ali, 34: Convicted of two counts of sexual activity with a child and two drug offences.
  • Saiful Islam, 35: Guilty of one count of rape.
  • Yasser Hussain, 28: One count of assault by beating, one count of intimidation, and one count of permitting his premises to be used for the supply of drugs.
  • Badrul Hussain, 37: Three counts of permitting premises to be used for the supply of class A and B drugs.
  • Nadeem Aslam, 43: Two counts of supplying drugs, two counts of possession of drugs, and one count of permitting premises to be used for the supply of drugs.
  • Mohibur Rahman, 44: Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution for gain and five drug offences.
  • Redwan Siddquee, 32: Guilty of one count of supplying drugs.

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