Dan Haley | @cymroofbarri89

Content Warning: this piece contains the truly barbaric scale and grim detail of just some of the grooming gang cases. It is important not to shy away from or sanitise it in any way, as this not only glosses over the real abuse and unbearable trauma these innocent girls suffered, but also lessens the depravity these perpetrators inflicted upon them.

Open Justice UK recently uploaded transcripts and sentencing remarks relating to the horrifying and widespread foreign rape gangs that terrorised our country for decades. Court records relating to these particular cases have been notoriously hard to obtain. Open Justice UK has been able to gather only a small fraction of the incidents still on record dating back to 2013. With the National Rape Gang inquiry still ongoing after increasing pressure from the public, setbacks and numerous delays, these limited details will be crucial in raising public awareness.

In June 2013, Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Kamar Jamil, Mohammed Karrar and Bassam Karrar, all of Pakistani origin and living in Oxford, were convicted of a series of sexual crimes. The 66 counts included trafficking, forced prostitution of girls, rape and physical violence, which were of the “utmost gravity” according to Judge Peter Rook. The offences involved the mass exploitation and systematic abuse of young, vulnerable girls in the Oxford area over a long period, the number of total victims the police said “could exceed 50”.

Many of the girls came from dysfunctional families and troubled upbringings which made them an easy target. The fact they were vulnerable and under-age, made them impressionable to the perpetrators who also supplied them with alcohol and drugs. If a girl stepped out of line, they would threaten them with further brutality. The judge noted a “subculture in Cowley Road where there was little moral compass and little or no effort to control.” Even the defence noted there was “a wilful blindness by the authorities” to prevent this criminal activity.

In the sentencing remarks, the judge referenced the treatment of a 13 year old girl, who after receiving threats of intimidation and violence against herself and her family was coerced into providing sex to dozens of strangers, often 4 or 5 at the same time. These men, mostly of Pakistani descent and origin, came from Bradford, Leeds, Slough and London. The victim described the perpetrators as having a “pack mentality”.

The abuse made her become emotionally and physically exhausted. If she dared to resist their sick demands her head would be “pushed down, hair pulled, and she would be slapped. Strangers also burnt her with cigarettes and throttled her, and another inserted a hairbrush into her vagina. When she tried to pretend to have a period to avoid further horrific abuse, the child rapists punished her by dragging her to a car park. Despite her pleading, they each forced her to give them oral sex, and told her they were going to cut her throat if she did not comply, in a manner similar to the slaughter of a pig.

This single harrowing case mirrors other large exploitation rings operating in Rochdale, Derby, Telford, where men of predominantly Pakistani background abused exclusively underage, vulnerable, white girls. The depravity and extreme violence associated with these cases effectively amounted to torture, according to the police.

One girl known only as Girl C testified that the men in question wanted specifically white girls to abuse. Sentencing remarks from a Kirklees case in 2022 highlighted not only the brutality, but the racialised and tribal element to the abuse.

Mohammed Hanif, Nazam Hussein, Ansar Qayum, Mohammed Qayum and Zafar Qayum, were convicted of a string of sex offences including multiple rapes, indecent assaults, forced oral sex and aiding and abetting family members to take part. One of the girls, aged 13 at the time of the abuse and known only as Person B said:

“When I started seeing Zaf (Zafar Qayum), he knew my real age he would want a blowjob, hand job and sex, and he said we're here to fuck all the white girls and fuck the government. We're over here to breed, we are going to take over.”

As utterly horrific and shocking as some of these details are to pour over, we have barely just scratched the ugly surface of this national stain on our collective history. A crime of such unimaginable proportions and depravity that it may go down as one of the worst atrocities ever committed on British soil.

Much was said about these rapists being “British-Pakistani” or “of the certain area” in which they happened to live so as not to draw any distinctions or rather inconvenient conclusions about the nature of these racially motivated offences and the clear proportionality of the perpetrators in question. Pakistan itself suffers from a rape epidemic, with gender-based violence being particularly prevalent despite the conviction rate being alarmingly low, with only 0.5% of cases going to trial.

It is clear that our government had imported a culture and people that have very alien attitudes to women in general. These poor innocent girls were treated like they were subhuman, property, just simple spoils to be exploited, traded and shared amongst their own. Countless lives have been destroyed. The complicity of many who were sworn to protect our most vulnerable for fear of “rocking the multicultural boat”, as one agency put it, cannot be easily swept aside either. Our warm generosity and tolerance was repaid with the innumerable tears, blood and the destroyed innocence of our daughters, sisters, nieces and granddaughters. Never. Again.