Grooming gang leader is jailed for more abuse

A WOMAN abused as a teenager by the ringleader of a gang that sexually exploited children in Rotherham came forward after seeing news reports of his convictions, a court has heard.

Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar was charged as part of Operation Stovewood, a series of National Crime Agency (NCA) investigations which began after child sexual exploitation on a massive scale was identified in the South Yorkshire town, provoking a national outcry.

The 42-year-old was jailed for 23 years at Sheffield Crown Court in 2018 for sexual offences against three vulnerable victims between 1998 and 2005.

At the time, a judge described him as a ringleader who would befriend and groom young girls, introduce them to his friends and engage in sexual activity with them while being “well aware” of their vulnerability.

Yesterday, Akhtar was sentenced for the sexual abuse of a further victim between 2001 and 2003, when she was aged 13 and 14.

Sheffield Crown Court heard she was a “very vulnerable girl living in difficult circumstances” who had started going missing and staying away from home.

Judge Sarah Wright said Akhtar targeted her in Rotherham town centre by calling her over to his car.

He began to groom the girl, giving her alcohol and drugs, the court heard.

She described engaging in sexual activity with him four or five times a week for about a year in his car and an apparently empty house in Rotherham. The court heard that on one occasion he and another man had intimidated her and another victim, “clearly distressed and unwilling”, into sexual activity.

The court heard he could be “cruel and unpleasant to her”, on one occasion abandoning her in a remote location after kicking her out of his car. The victim told police in her interview that “when she walks down the street and sees someone that vaguely resembles the defendant, it makes her feel sick”, the court heard.

Michael Collins, mitigating, said the offences were committed before Akhtar married and had a child, and that he had mental health difficulties which were “making incarceration harder”.

Judge Wright said: “I commend the bravery of the victim in coming forward after all this time.

“Her childhood and adolescence can never be reclaimed, the effect of your (Akhtar’s) offending on her cannot be overestimated.

“She was an extremely vulnerable young girl who came from difficult family circumstances and was clearly looking for attention.”

Akhtar pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault, with one of each referring to multiple incidents, on what would have been the first day of his trial last October.

Judge Wright sentenced him to 12 years in prison, to run concurrently with the 23-year sentence he is already serving.