Victory for the Press as JP linked to grooming case CAN be named
A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE magistrate once suspected of child prostitution can now be named after he fought to keep his arrest secret for more than five years.
Oxford landlord Tariq Khuja – who is reported to own hundreds of properties – used human rights laws to stop the Press reporting his grooming gang arrest.
But Supreme Court judges yesterday ruled that he could be named in a landmark victory for press freedom.
The property developer – described as a ‘prominent figure’ in Oxford – was arrested in March 2012 on suspicion of causing the prostitution of girls under 18, but never charged.
he was held alongside members of the city’s brutal child sex ring and a trial saw seven men convicted for the ‘depraved’ and ‘evil’ abuse. The Old Bailey case heard the gang groomed, beat and drugged girls as young as 11 before selling them for sex to hundreds of men.
Businessman Mr Khuja was released from police bail in 2013 but sought to hide his arrest after his name came out in the trial – claiming it would breach his right to privacy and ruin his reputation.
One of the Oxford gang’s victims told jurors she was abused by a man called Tariq who gave her cocaine and champagne.
But she did not pick out Mr Khuja, who is now 40, in an identity parade and he was never charged.
The witness told the Old Bailey she had sex with a man called Tariq repeatedly when she was a young teen.
She said she saw the man with ‘big wads of cash’, adding: ‘he was pretty suave. he looked like a businessman. he was smart, well dressed. he looked like somebody either who had a good job or had money.’
She also said she believed her abusers were ‘ paying Tariq to have sex’ with her.
Mr Khuja’s lawyers said their client was not the man the witness described.
her evidence can only be reported now after Mr Khuja lost his lengthy legal battle yesterday. Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire County Council faced a storm of criticism after failing to protect the vulnerable girls for more than a decade.
A serious case review revealed that the gang may have claimed as many as 373 victims over the course of 16 years.
Mr Khuja rented to social services and was paid by the local authority to house vulnerable teenagers.
After his arrest the local authority removed tenants from properties run by his company, an Oxfordshire County Council spokesman said.
A Judiciary spokesman said Mr Khuja was appointed a magistrate in 2007 and volunteered to refrain from sitting after his arrest. he then resigned from the role in 2015.
After the judgement was handed down yesterday, Mr Khuja’s lawyer Alex Cochrane, of Collyer Bristow LLP, said: ‘My client has always maintained his innocence and he continues to believe that, save in exceptional cases, people who are facing criminal allegations should not be named publicly unless and until charged.
‘My client was arrested as long ago as 2012 and he has never been charged with – let alone convicted of – any offence.
‘In fact, in July 2013, Thames Valley Police took the step of informing him that he had been “de-arrested”, since when no further action has been taken against him.’
Supreme Court president Lord neuberger agreed with Lady hale, Lord Clarke, Lord Sumption and Lord Reed that Mr Khuja had no right to prevent publication of matters, including his identity, being discussed at a public trial.
Lord Kerr and Lord Wilson disagreed. Lord Sumption, delivering the judgement, said the Press was the ‘eyes and ears’ of the public entitled to sit in open court proceedings.
he said the impact of the report on Mr Khuja was ‘indirect and incidental’, and said: ‘The law protects those who report what has been said and done at a public hearing in the interests of open justice.
‘It is an unfortunate but inevitable fact that innocent people may suffer collateral damage as a result but it is part of the price we pay for a transparent system of public justice.’
‘He looked like a businessman’ ‘In the interests of open justice’