Peterborough grooming trial: Mohammed Khubaib guilty of sex offences on girls

And so it goes on. From the BBC

A married restaurant owner with a “persistent and almost predatory interest” in girls has been found guilty of rape and grooming offences. The conviction of Peterborough businessman Mohammed Khubaib, 43, is the latest in Cambridgeshire Police’s Operation Erle, which investigated sex offences against girls in the Peterborough area.

Khubaib forced a 14-year-old girl to perform a sex act on him and committed nine counts of trafficking. 

The court heard that Khubaib’s activities in Peterborough involved girls being befriended and then “hooked” with alcohol – normally vodka – in an attempt to make them “compliant” to sexual advances.

Khubaib, who lived in the city with his wife and children, would pursue his interest “away from his home and family”, using his restaurant as a “focal point”.

Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, said the girls were vulnerable because of their age, background, circumstances or unsettled schooling and Khubaib pretended to be their “friend and helper”.

Following the guilty verdict at the Old Bailey, he will be sentenced on 15 May.

His conviction brings the total number of people to be convicted under Operation Erle to 10, of which five are of Pakistani origin. Others were of other middle eastern backgrounds.  Four previous cases led to nine male defendants being jailed for 59 offences against 15 girls, from Peterborough, with a couple from Lincolnshire and Rutland.