British Pakistani found guilty in 30 rape cases in new trial

* Former taxi driver encouraged victims to call him ‘daddy’

By Asif Mehmood

LONDON: A British Pakistani ringleader of a sex-grooming gang was found guilty of 30 counts of rape in a new trial of the Rochdale sex-grooming case.

Shabir Ahmed, 59, a father of four, and his friends raped an underage girl above a Heywood takeaway where he worked as a delivery driver. He also encouraged his victims to call him “daddy”.

The Pakistan-born former taxi driver claimed the girls gave him the name because he would scold them if they behaved badly in the takeaway. He was one of nine men convicted at Liverpool Crown Court in May over the sexual grooming of vulnerable girls in Rochdale between 2008 and 2010. He raped one underage girl twice and “aided and abetted” in a third rape by another takeaway worker, Kabeer Hassan. Ahmed also had a year-long sexual relationship with another teenage girl, although the girl herself regarded him as a father figure and still insists he did nothing wrong.

Ahmed behaved outrageously during the Liverpool trial, removing his T-shirt and ripping out clumps of his own chest hair in front of the judge in a bizarre bid to demonstrate he would have left damning follicles of his own hair at the scene of his crimes. “You preyed on girls because they were not part of your community or religion,” the judge said, as he jailed the Rochdale sex gang for 77 years.

According to one of the victims, she was scared and told him she wanted to go home.

During the trial, Ahmed repeatedly accused the judge, the jury, and the police of being part of a racist conspiracy against Muslims in the United Kingdom. All the defendants were Asian and all the five young victims who gave evidence during the trial were white.

“It’s all white lies,” the accused said. But it can now be revealed he repeatedly raped an Asian girl over many years.

The ban on identifying Ahmed was lifted after another jury at Manchester Crown found him guilty of yet more sex crimes - this time the allegation was that he repeatedly raped an Asian girl over a number of years. In the latest case, he was convicted on 30 counts as he raped the girl over many years. The jury was not told of his involvement in the Rochdale child sex-grooming scandal until Ahmed went into the witness box and revealed everything as part of his bid to persuade them he was a victim of a conspiracy against the Muslim community. He was jailed for 19 years at Liverpool Crown Court in May after a jury convicted him on three counts of rape of one girl, for sexual assault on another girl, trafficking within the UK and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.

The jury in Manchester had been told of the rape and sex assault convictions but not of the other charges and how he was central to the Rochdale case. The jury in the latest case dismissed his defence in finding him guilty of 30 counts of rape. He smiled as the verdicts were read out. Judge Mushtaq Khokhar lifted the ban on identifying Ahmed and told him, “As you know you have been convicted of serious offences. The court does require further information in your case before proceeding to sentence.”

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