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Asian gang prowled streets searching for rape victims
Two respectable Asian family men trawled the streets, picking up, raping and sexually abusing up to 100 young girls over 18 months, police believe.
By Nick Britten 6:30AM GMT 25 Nov 2010
At home, Abid Saddique and Mohammed Liaqat, both of whom were married with young children, were considered clean, upstanding family men as well as devout Muslims. But once they left their front door and their wives behind, they turned into vodka-swilling, cocaine-binging paedophiles who spent every available moment randomly targeting young girls on the street, befriending them, and then horrifically abusing them.
The 28-year-olds were at the head of a 13-strong gang who would film the assaults on their mobile telephones. For over 18 months, dressed “sharply” in designer western clothes, wearing jewellery and sporting short haircuts, the pair cruised the streets of Derby in a silver BMW 5 series with blacked-out windows, approaching girls at random and with a bottle of vodka and plastic cups hidden under the front seats.
An undercover investigation by Derbyshire Police, dubbed Operation Retriever, was split into three trials which have run since February at Leicester Crown Court and can only now be reported. The victims, aged between 12-18, ranged from girls in care to a 14-year-old A-grade student from a strong, middle-class home. They were predominantly girls with a troubled background.
They would pick their victims up night and day and from anywhere - at train stations, on estates, in the city centre, walking home from school. They would be charmed, given drink and drugs, and after mobile numbers were handed over, contacted again to meet up, go to a party or for a drive, where the abuse took place. At the opening of the first trial, held at Nottingham Crown Court, prosecutor Yvonne Coen QC said: "They preyed on young girls who were vulnerable, either because of their age and because of their own personal circumstances.
"They exploited these girls either for their own sexual satisfaction or for their friends. "The girls involved in the case were young and however cool and grown-up they may have wanted to be or intended to appear, in fact they were naive and impressionable. "The reason for the main defendants' relentless pursuit of the girls in this way was quite simple. They wanted sex, whether the girls wanted sex or not."
In one incident, Saddique, who was convicted of 14 of the 29 charges he faced, was accused of engaging in sexual activity with a 12-year-old in Derby’s picturesque Darley Park, while his accomplice Liaqat, who was convicted of 10 crimes of the 18 charges he faced, had sex with a 14-year-old in the BMW. Another time, a 14-year-old girl was filmed having sex with three of the gang in a hotel room as cheers ring out.
The group faced 75 charges between them relating to twenty six girls, but police believe there are many more victims who have not come forward. Yesterday, Saddique and Liaqat - who since legal proceedings have begun had grown long beards and now wear Islamic dress - were convicted of charges of sexual assault and sexual activity with a child, bringing the trials to a close.
This year they had already been convicted of a series of other offences including rape, sexual assault, sexual activity with a child, false imprisonment and making child pornography. They will be sentenced for all their crimes in January. Police believe the organised campaign would have carried on a lot longer had it not been for a chance arrest on December 30th 2008.
Derbyshire police had already heard rumours of a paedophile gang operating in the city when Staffordshire police stopped a car in Burton-upon-Trent, carrying three men – including Saddique and Liaqat - and two girls, on suspicion of shoplifting. The girls were driven back to Derby, and tipped officers off about what was going on.
Detectives began digging deeper and surveillance was set up, and undercover officers began tailing the BMW around Derby and gathering evidence and keeping watch on Liaqat and Siddique, who was wearing an electronic tag at the time having been convicted of an assault on a woman.
The men were arrested in April and layer by layer officers unravelled an appalling campaign of systematic grooming and abuse, the scale of which had never been seen in the city. It was allowed to go on for so long because the girls were too ashamed to tell their parents or did not so out of a misguided sense of loyalty towards their abusers. Det Insp Shaun Dawson, of Derbyshire police, said: “This case was simply about sexual gratification.
“They used classic grooming techniques. They had a car, alcohol, drugs. They befriended the girls, who thought these men were their boyfriends so willingly went along with them. “They would pick them up, arrange further meetings or invite them to parties. When the girls were abused and refused to have anything more to do with them, they simply moved on to other victims. “Some of the girls introduced them to other school friends which is how the cycle of abuse spread.
“They were very confident in their approaches. They clearly thought of themselves as attractive young men, they had a car, they had some money and they would be quite aggressive when they would start their charm offensive. “Once they had mobile numbers for the girls then the grooming process would intensify.” “When we arrested them, we had no idea of the scale of this. Once we had them locked up other victims spoke out and it snowballed from there.”
The gang live all over Derby and police believe they met through a common liking for young girls. They would use hotels, cars, public parks and even their victims’ homes to carry out the rapes and sex crimes. Others in the gang are Mohamed Rehman, 26, who received seven and a half years for rape. Akshay Kumar, 38 jailed for two years and 10 months for being involved with child pornography.
Graham Blackham, a one-time Avon salesman, a convicted sex offender and the only non-Asian defendant, got three years for two breaches of Sexual Offender Prevention Order which banned him from contact with under 18s. Farooq Ahmed, 28, was sentenced to 18 months for witness intimidation, as was Naweed Liaqat, 33, Liaqat’s brother.
Faisal Mehmood, 24, pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child under the age of 16, and got three years and a deportation order returning him to Pakistan. Ziafat Rafin, 31, received three years for supplying drugs. Four other men accused of being involved were acquitted.
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