Omar, Khalid, Jameel and 21 others charged for raping a minor girl for 4 years: All we know about the Bradford child sex abuse case

It’s come to something when I can spend a short holiday actually in West Yorkshire (admittedly not glued to the news) and not find out about this until i) I get home and ii) not from the local newspaper, (although I since see that BBC Leeds mentioned it briefly) not from a national newspaper but from the Indian Press. As it happens the Indian press do take a close interest in both the UK rape gang grooming cases because they have their own problems with it, and the Muslim attacks on Hindu institutions in the UK, for obvious reasons.

From Opindia

Besides the child sex abuse, the case also pertains to Grooming Jihad—a global issue that has become particularly stark in the UK—where Islamists prey on young girls and women, exploit their vulnerability and use rape as an instrument to inflict punishment. I think that’s a fair summary. 

On Thursday, October 6 the West Yorkshire police charged another man named Omar Taj in the historic child sexual abuse case in Bradford, United Kingdom, taking the total number of accused to twenty-four. The accused had allegedly raped and pushed a 13-year-old child into prostitution. The sexual offences against the minor continued for four years, between 2007 and 2011.

Omar Taj (35), who has been charged with the rape of a child, was presented before the Bradford Magistrates on Friday 7 October. The rest of the 23 accused have already appeared in court throughout September, the West Yorkshire police informed in a press release.

The crimes were committed between 2007 and 2011 against the victim, who was aged 13 years in the Bradford area.

The other accused men charged for sexual offences, including rape and child prostitution were, Pasquale Massimo (40), Khazer Hussain (41), Syed Shabir (39), Abbas Hussain (41), Mussadaq Hussain (37), Amjad Hussain )36), Syed Hassan Basharat (33), Hannan Miah (37), Burhan Uddin Ali (36), Abdul Basith (40), Asif Budhia (39), Shazad Khadam (38), Ibrahim Ali (35), Ashfaq Ahmed (34), Aftab Ahmed (33), Yousaf Bhatti (36), Anwar Aziz (32), Shahinul Haq (35), Jameel Ahmed (32), Brian Davis (53), Khalid Parvez (63), Mohammed Nadeem Ali (38) and Muhammad Yasir (36).

I can tell from the police news releases that 23 men appeared before Bradford Magistrates Court and this 24th man was expected t do so on Friday 7th. All English criminal cases start in the Magistrates court. Some are dealt with there; anything serious enough to be ‘indictable’ like rape, sexual abuse, serious violence will then be committed to the senior criminal court, the Crown Court for trial. But I don’t know if that has happened yet, and whether they are in custody or on bail. I’ll add it to my list of cases (all in the north) on which I am keeping an eye. 

13th October; some of them have hearing in the crown court today, with reporting restrictions imposed. So I better not say any more, even though this information is in the public domain.