Unmasked: the face of evil

GUILTY . . . Shabir Ahmed

Monster found guilty of 30 child-rape charges

The Oldham ringleader of a gang of Asian men who groomed young white girls for sex can finally be unmasked - following guilty verdicts in 30 child rape charges.

Shabir Ahmed (59) led a child sex exploitation ring of nine men who targeted vulnerable young girls in Oldham and Rochdale. He was jailed for 19 years last month following an 11–week trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

But Ahmed — known to his victims by the nickname “Daddy” - could not be named at the time, as he was awaiting trial on the current child rape charges.

Yesterday the father of four of Windsor Road, Coppice was convicted of 30 charges of rape by a jury at Manchester Crown Court. Judge Mushtaq Khokhar lifted reporting restrictions, which means he can be identified for the first time.

The court heard that he raped and sexually abused a young Asian girl over many years. During this trial, the witness, who appeared at court via videolink broke down during her evidence, screaming: “He’s a monster — a psychopath.”

Reliving her trauma in graphic detail, she told visibly upset jurors how Ahmed forced her to remove her underwear, before he would grope and then rape her.

“I didn’t want it to happen,” she sobbed to the court.

“It was scary and there was nothing I could do about it. Even when I cried he would carry on — he would just tell me to shut up. It has ruined my life — it’s disgusting. That’s why I don’t want to get married.”

Prosecuting, Rachel Smith, told jurors that “several people knew what Ahmed was doing but, for different reasons, chose to do nothing about it”.

The jury heard how Ahmed had been convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl in 2008 and sexually assaulting another girl — and how he denied the offences had even taken place.

The prosecution suggested that these convictions demonstrated the defendant had a propensity to commit these offences and that he had shown an “utter contempt” for women.

Throughout the trial, Ahmed was adamant he had never raped or touched the girl inappropriately and that he couldn’t understand why she was bringing the allegations against him.

He said the whole thing was a conspiracy. He then pointed to police officers in court and told them: “You’ll never get CBE or OBE — you’ll get the DM — Destroyer of Muslims.”

The jury returned a verdict of guilty on 30 counts in under three hours.

Ahmed will be sentenced on August 2.



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