Rochdale sex gang leader jailed for 22 years - Telegraph.co.uk

Judge Khokhar said: "I understand you are still in denial but I will not have you making comments while I pass sentence. Take him down to the cells."

Judge Khokhar said Ahmed was an outcast in the local Muslim community, adding: "No-one has spoken up for you or supported you while in prison.

"This was a campaign of rapes on an extremely vulnerable child. You exerted control and power on your victim who says her future prospects are bleak. She still lives under fear because of what the defendant might do when he comes out of prison.

"I take into account the fact you did not have any consideration for the victim as she had to relive her ordeal by giving evidence in this trial. She mentioned suffering nightmares about the defendant and I think the appropriate sentence is 22 years."

The sentence means Ahmed, of Oldham, Greater Manchester, will serve another three years in jail. He is already on the sex offender's register indefinitely.

His victim, who cannot be named, revealed Ahmed once made her kneel on the floor in a pose called the 'chicken', with her arms threaded through her legs and touching her ears, before striking her on the back with a cricket bat.

The girl, now an adult, claims she was repeatedly raped over many years. He left her never wanting to have sex again or get married.

The girl said when she was first raped she was so young she needed to stand on a chair to reach a sink.

She said: "I remember reading about the time the Roald Dahl book 'The BFG', and it described a person screaming and no sound came out - it was like that."

She said the "shame" meant she did not tell police until March last year when she heard Ahmed was being investigated over the grooming case.

The court heard during one rape attack she muttered under her breath :"sex maniac". Ahmed giggled: "Yes, that's what I am!"

Rachel Smith, prosecuting, told the jury of six men and six women, two of whom were Asian: "Ahmed was violent and controlling."

Ahmed told the court he was a standard-bearer for "targeted and weakened British Muslims", and claimed the police were anti-Muslim

He said of the Rochdale grooming trial: "We were all innocent. My only crime was to be Muslim. Not of the majority race.

In May, Ahmed and his eight co-defendants were jailed for their role in a child-sex ring.

After that trial, Judge Gerald Clifton called him an "unpleasant and hypocritical bully" and told all the nine men they were driven by "lust and greed", adding: "You treated the victims as worthless and beyond respect."

Takeaway worker Kabeer Hassan, 25, was given a total of 12 years for rape and conspiracy. Taxi driver Abdul Aziz, 41, got 18 years for conspiracy and sex trafficking; Dad-of-five Abdul Rauf, 43, was jailed 12 years for conspiracy and sex trafficking; Mohammed Sajid, 35, got 12 years for rape, conspiracy, sex trafficking and sexual activity with a child.

Married Adil Khan, 42, was jailed for 18 years for conspiracy and sex trafficking. Taxi driver Mohammed Amin, 45, was caged for six years for conspiracy and sexual assault while cabbie Abdul Qayyum, 44, was jailed for five years for conspiracy. Hamid Safi, 22, was jailed for four years for conspiracy and sex trafficking.