Child rape gang leader loses human rights claim
THE leader of an Asian grooming gang which preyed on girls as young as 13 has lost a bid to overturn his convictions using human rights laws.
Shabir Ahmed had claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy to scapegoat Muslims because the jury at his trial was all-white.
The 63-year-old was given a 22-year sentence in 2012 for raping vulnerable teenagers in Rochdale after plying them with alcohol.
He took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing the jury was biased. The divorced father- of-four also claimed jurors passed information about their deliberations to far-Right organisations.
He said the jury was not impartial as Nick Griffin, then British National Party chairman, had posted on social media about guilty verdicts in the case before they had been announced at Liverpool Crown Court.
But, in a unanimous verdict, judges in Strasbourg threw out his claims as ‘manifestly ill-founded’.
They said there was ‘simply no proof’ that jurors acted improperly or breached Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees a fair trial. The judges added that there had been 12 safeguards to ensure impartiality.
The court also noted that complaints of jury bias had already been investigated and rejected by Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Ahmed, a takeaway worker, made other claims using the human rights laws. He insisted the case against him was ‘tailored by police to fit antiMuslim prejudice’, breaching Article 3 of the convention banning inhuman and degrading treatment.
Another complaint was that media coverage of the trial was against Article 8, which protects private and family life. Ahmed also maintained he suffered racial and religious discrimination, a breach of Article 14.
However, the court threw out his ‘wide range of other complaints’ as having no substance.
In two trials, Ahmed was convicted of 30 child rapes, conspiracy, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault and sex trafficking.