Rochdale gang found guilty of raping and exploiting two schoolgirls over five years

A group of men have been convicted of the sexual exploitation of two teenage schoolgirls in Rochdale.

- KIM PILLING

The seven defendants were all Asian males aged between 39 and 67. They preyed on the vulnerabilities of their victims to groom them as “sex slaves” from the age of 13 on various dates in the Greater Manchester town between 2001 and 2006.

The victims were given drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, places to stay and people to be with, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard. Both were described as white teenage schoolgirls with “deeply troubled home lives.”

After initial meetings, the girls were expected to have sex “whenever and wherever” the defendants and other men wanted in filthy flats, on rancid mattresses, in cars, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses.

Jurors deliberated for three weeks before delivering their unanimous guilty verdicts yesterday. Three of the abusers – Mohammed Zahid, 64, Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, and Kasir Bashir, 50, all born in Pakistan – were stallholders on the town’s indoor market.

Father-of-three Zahid – known as “boss man” – gave free underwear from his lingerie stall to both complainants and also money, alcohol and food in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends.

In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years in an earlier grooming gang case after he engaged in sexual activity in 2006 with a 15-year-old girl, who he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school.