LONDON, (Reuters) – Five people were convicted yesterday of multiple sex crimes against young girls in Rotherham, the northern English town which hit the headlines two years ago when it was revealed that as many as 1,400 children had been abused by gangs.
The group, which included three British Asian brothers, their uncle and two white women, systematically carried out the sexual exploitation of 15 victims, aged between 11 and 21, over a period of 16 years from 1987, prosecutors said.
They groomed vulnerable girls and women for abuse, often subjecting them to degrading and violent acts.
“They were mocked and spat at. Some of the violence was extreme and protracted. The physical and psychological suffering these girls have endured is unthinkable,” Peter Mann from Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said.
“Their trauma is only matched in scale by the extraordinary courage they have displayed in coming forward to report their abuse and give evidence in this trial so that their abusers can at last be accorded the punishment they deserve.”
Brothers Basharat and Arshid Hussain, their uncle Qurban Ali and Karen MacGregor and Shelley Davis were found guilty of a variety of sex offences at Sheffield Crown Court.
Bannaras Hussain, the third brother, had earlier pleaded guilty. Two other men were cleared.
