Four men convicted of sexual assaults following investigation into child sexual exploitation

This was in court last week while I was away. From the Chronicle, daily newspaper of Newcastle on Tyne

Four men have been convicted of multiple sexual offences following a complex investigation into child sexual exploitation in Newcastle.

Omar Badreddin, 25, Mohamad Badreddin, 22, Huzaefa Alaboud, 22 and Hamoud Al-Soaimi, 20, are facing lengthy jail terms after their vile offences were uncovered as part of a long-running investigation. Operation Phoenix first began in 2019 and saw specialist officers from Northumbria Police investigate reports of child sexual exploitation relating to two victims aged between 12 and 14. A range of enquiries were carried out by detectives from the Major Investigation Team leading to the arrest of Baddredin brothers, Alaboud and Al-Soaimi who were subsequently charged with a number of offences, including rape and sexual assault.

On Monday (October 9), following a four-week trial at Newcastle Crown Court, a jury found the predators guilty as follows:

• Omar Badreddin, of Cowgate, was convicted of five counts of rape.
• Mohamad Badreddin, also of Cowgate, was convicted of six counts of rape and one count of assault by penetration.
• Huzaefa Alaboud, of Throckley was convicted of two counts of rape, assault by penetration and assault occasioning actual bodily harm
• Hamoud Al-Soaimi, of Byker was convicted of three counts of sexual assault and assaulting a child under 13 by penetration.

The men have been remanded in custody and are due to be sentenced on December 22.

I didn’t remember reading about the start of this trial so I put the names into a search engine. What came up was, from 2021:

Four protesters who took part in last year’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations have denied charges of violent disorder. Omar Badreddin, 23, Mohamed Badreddin, 20 . . .  all appeared before Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on Monday to enter their pleas. All four were charged with being part of a group of three or more people who “used or threatened unlawful violence” in the city centre on June 13 last year. I can’t find how that ended up. 

and from 2016 reported in the Middle East Eye

Three Syrian men have been charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in northern England. Omar Badreddin, 18, (and two other young men) have pleaded not guilty. A 16-year-old-boy, also understood to be Syrian, has also been charged with sexual assault. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is not thought to have entered a plea yet.

The case is set to attract attention in Britain as Badreddin came to the UK from Jordan last November as a refugee under the government’s much-heralded refugee resettlement programme. Badreddin’s family reportedly came into the UK under the Home Office’s vulnerable persons relocation (VPR) scheme for Syrian refugees and will have been judged to be vulnerable by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) relief agency.

The latest figures, released last month, show that Badreddin is one of 1,854 Syrians who have arrived in the UK under the VPR scheme. The scheme is designed to bring vulnerable Syrian to the UK directly from camps in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.

They were acquitted partly because of problems with the interpreter and the witness statements. 

During the two week trial defence barristers applied for the case to be thrown out, it can now be reported. They said that there were inconsistencies in the complainants’ evidence to police, to the court and in cross-examination.

One of the girls was a “proven liar”, the defence teams claimed, who had fabricated serious allegations about her home life prior to the sex assault claims. Judge Edward Bindloss decided that the question of the complainants’ reliability was best left to the jury and allowed the trial to continue.

Further problems with the high-profile case arose during the evidence Mr Alfrouh gave, when it became apparent major errors had been made by the interpreter during his key interview with police after he was arrested.

I wouldn’t want innocent men convicted, but how shall I phrase this, the Badreddin Brothers and their associates do not seem to be the stuff we were promised of enrichment and vibrancy.