Mohammed Zahid, 65, ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang, was this week jailed for 35 years for raping and sexually abusing two teenage girls. Six other men were convicted and sentenced on linked offences between 2001 and 2006. The case is the latest in a decades-long national accounting for the failures which allowed the grooming gangs to target vulnerable girls across Britain, according to the New York Times.
How the abuse occurred
The prosecutors went on to say that Zahid groomed the two 13-year-old girls, both of whom began being abused at this age, with gifts and money before initiating them into sex. The victims were taken to various places where they were raped and given alcohol by rings of local market traders and taxi drivers. Some of the men who were handed down the sentences include Mushtaq Ahmed, Kasir Bashir, Roheez Khan, Mohammed Shahzad, Nisar Hussain, and Naheem Akram. The trial revealed how the perpetrators employed what experts call the "boyfriend model," establishing dependence first before forcing girls to have sex with cohorts of men.
Rochdale's role in a national scandal
Rochdale was in the headlines initially in the early 2010s when investigative reporters revealed its grooming networks. The revelation triggered a wave of prosecutions in England and questions over why police and councils had not intervened earlier. A 2022 report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse determined that authorities had made "extensive failures," all too frequently labeling victims as "child prostitutes" instead of recognizing them as children exploited.
Policing and accountability
Greater Manchester Police said the new convictions followed probes by a specialist unit tackling child sexual exploitation that was established in 2021. Since the unit opened, it has secured convictions against 32 perpetrators in Rochdale which will be around 500 years of prison time. A further 20 men are in custody awaiting trial. Detective Chief Inspector Guy Laycock praised the "painful and difficult testimony" of the victims, which helped secure the convictions.
Victims' voices and recovery
One of the victims, referred to as "girl B" in accordance with UK anonymity laws, attended the sentencing and described the weight lifted from her shoulders with the guilty verdicts. She appealed to other survivors to come forward about their abuse. Both victims came from vulnerable backgrounds and were under the watch of social services at the time of the abuse, once more highlighting systemic failures that allowed the exploitation to occur unchecked.
Ethnicity, politics, and controversy
The majority of grooming gang cases involved men of Pakistani or Muslim heritage, though the 2022 inquiry warned that it was "impossible to know" whether some ethnic groups might be being disproportionately represented across the country due to poor data collection. The government then asked police to note ethnicity and nationality in all cases of child abuse. An official audit also found that institutions had often avoided engaging with ethnicity for fear of being accused of racism, a factor critics argue has resulted in delayed justice.
A lingering reckoning
Rochdale Borough Council said that it was "a very different place" from when the abuse occurred, highlighting ongoing partnership work with police to identify offenders. The scandal, though, has continued to resonate through British politics and society, with a full national review into grooming gangs launched earlier this year amid growing public pressure. For survivors, this week's sentencing was a step forward—but also a reminder of how long it had been coming.
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