From the Huddersfield Examiner Photograph from the Telegraph and Argus when the case started at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court in August 2020.
A grooming gang member who was first arrested seven years ago has finally been sentenced – but has walked free from court.
Sayeed Hafeez was 23 when he took a 15-year-old girl to two beauty spots in West Yorkshire and had sexual activity with her. Bradford Crown Court heard the girl had already been groomed and abused by a number of other men who have previously been sentenced.
His Honour Judge Anthony Hatton said there was no evidence to suggest the girl had been “traded” to Hafeez, who is now 36, and it is not clear how they came to know each other.
Prosecutor Katherine Robinson said Hafeez was due to stand accused of two counts of rape but had pleaded guilty at trial to two counts of sexual activity with a child. He had been arrested in 2016 and was standing trial in October 2021 with his co-defendants when he was severed from it due to him allegedly developing Covid-19.
Mitigating Taryn Turner told the court a pre-sentence report had been carried out and “what happened to the victim in this case is appalling.” She said Hafeez is now a mature man…Ms Turner said the point of an age gap means more with younger people than it does in later life. She said: “It’s not an extraordinary difference in age.” She added the girl was “mature” at 15, and a photograph of Hafeez at the time seems to “reveal he was a much younger man still in college so perhaps the disparity in age is not so great as may be thought at first.” The court heard Hafeez – who is supported by his family – had suffered the loss of two of his brothers and struggles with his mental health.
Judge Hatton handed Hafeez a sentence of two years suspended for two years. The court was told that following his arrest, Hafeez was interviewed by police and gave a pre-prepared statement saying there had been some sexual contact with the girl but he had believed she was 16 and it had been consensual.
Hafeez was ordered to complete up to 43 days of a sex offenders’ treatment programme, 55 rehabilitation activity requirement days and nine months of an alcohol treatment programme.
Hafeez and other defendants were arrested and went through the Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court in August 2020. I posted it then. The reporting restrictions on the numerous grooming trials at Crown Court Bradford are so strict much cannot be reported in the local newspapers and what is made public is piecemeal and disjointed. But some of those men named with Hafeez in 2020 were sentenced for sexual offences including rape of a girl aged between 14 and 16 years of age at CC Bradford in February 2022 as reported by the Yorkshire Post here.
It is my personal opinion that the authorities are trying to minimise the publicity around these mass rapes because they fear mounting public anger.
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One Response
And what are the prison terms for those convicted of either: kidnaping, rape, tortures, or mutilations?
What procedures are enforced to prevent recidivism?
Is punishment a hoax, farce, or bad joke?
Who really cares?