Man at ‘very heart’ of paedophile gang

or 14-year-old girl - who is referred to as Girl A. But she believes Dhaliwal, who at the time was in his early twenties and was better known by his nickname Pretos, was already abusing other underage girls before she came along.

The mechanic, along with Zahid Hassan and another man, first approached her and her friends in Huddersfield bus station as they were on their way to school. She was 13 or 14 years old and the girls she was with were even younger than her. The men offered them cigarettes and told them to skip school to get drunk with them.

They didn’t truant, but they exchanged numbers.

She said they kept phoning her and turning up outside her school. “There was no getting away from them,” she said.

Within weeks, she was being forced to engage in sexual acts with the men.

He faced the highest amount of charges of all the group - 57, of which he was convicted of all but three. He was found guilty of: 21 counts of rape, three of which were of a child under 13; 13 counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation; five counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity; three counts of sexual assault; three counts of supplying a controlled drug of Class A; three counts of possessing an indecent image of a child; two counts of administering a substance with intent; one count of inciting child prostitution; one count of assault by penetration and; one count of racially aggravated assault.

The now-married dad, who converted to Sikhism in 2013, denied every charge and even knowing some of his victims.

He claimed that the only time he took Girl A up to the moors was to ‘admire the scenery.’

And he also claimed that she ‘fabricated’ the case because she used to mouth off at him when she saw him in the street and he used to call her fat in return so she had ‘a grudge or whatever’ against him ever since.

During cross-examination, which took place after his 11 victims had bravely stood up in the witness box and gave detailed evidence about him, he continued to deny being sexually involved with them.

As he stood in the witness box, Mr Wright said to him sarcastically: “The worst thing you’ve ever done is describe her as being fat and, over a decade later, she has organised over 10 girls to come forward and fabricate over 70 allegations of terrible sexual offending ... to have her revenge because you called her fat 12 years ago?”

The judge heard how, even after the 100-day trial in which a jury convicted him, Dhaliwal was still refusing to take responsibility for his actions.

Based on that and the amount of his offending, he was able to jail him for life with a minimum of 17 years and 312 days.

Sentencing, the judge told him: “Your treatment of these girls was inhuman, you treated them as commodities to be passed around for your own sexual gratification and the gratification of others.

“The extent and gravity of your offending far exceeds anything which I have previously encountered.”

The now 35-year-old, who initially gave a bail address of Holly Road, Thornton Lodge, but later gave the court an address of Everard Street, Crosland Moor, is serving his sentence in HMP Doncaster in South Yorkshire.

He will not be eligible to apply for release from prison until April 14, 2036 when he will be 53 years old. Even if he is released then, he will remain on licence for the remainder of his life.