Rochdale rape and abuse trial continues as eight men accused of treating two girls as ‘sex slaves’

For some reason the jury was discharged earlier this week and a new one sworn in and the trial started again. It probably isn’t for any significant reason. The Manchester Evening News hasn’t repeated evidence to the public but they have continued to keep a reporter in court. 

Note the term “sex slaves”; no cutsie euphemisms any more. No denial about ‘lifestyle choices’ or ‘status symbol Asian boyfriend’.

The trial of eight men accused of sexual offences in Rochdale is continuing. The defendants are accused of multiple offences against two teenage girls, referred to in court as ‘Girl A’ and ‘Girl B’.

It is alleged they became ‘sex slaves’, ‘preyed upon’ by the defendants. “The men in the dock are responsible for the rape and sexual exploitation of two girls,” jurors were earlier told. “These men preyed upon those vulnerabilities for their own perverted sexual gratification, in the most humiliating and degrading way imaginable. It would begin by making the girls feel like grown-ups, given alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, places to stay and people to be with.”

Jury hears about four other men who aren’t on the indictment

Mr Scamardella (counsel for the prosecution) tells the jury: “Between May 2004 and April 2006, four men not charged on this indictment, engaged in sexual activity with [Girl A] at least 30 times. Three of those men were Asian males. One of those men caused her to engage in sexual activity with another, and another raped her. This all occurred in Rochdale.”

He says that she was ‘groomed’ by one man and was given alcohol and cigarettes, before being ‘passed’ to his friends for sex. . .

Arfan Khan was first interviewed in February 2017. He said he had worked as a taxi driver, jurors are told. He said his friends called him ‘Affy’ but that this was a ‘very common’ name in Rochdale.  . . He said the allegations against him were ‘ridiculous’. In a third interview in August 2017 he denied knowing Girl A . . . told that Girl A had identified him in an identification procedure. “He said that that procedure had been ‘staged’ and someone had shown her his photo and said who he was, or she had heard a story from somewhere else. He said that he was probably the first person who came to [Girl A’s] head, or he was the easiest guy she could ‘pin it on’ as he put it, and he felt that he was being framed.”

Roheez Khan said he knew Girl A during his first interview in 2018, the jury hears. He told police he had been in prison previously for ‘rape charges’, the court is told.

Mr Scamardella said: “He suggested that she named him because she he had already been to prison. . .

. . . “He said he did not know why she would target him but she was trying to ‘fix people up’. At one stage he said to the police ‘I’m not being funny if 60 people were raping her and doing all sorts of stuff to her she wouldn’t be alive today. That’s an honest fact’.”

Mr Scamardella added: “Mr Shahzad suggested that [Girl A] would ‘get money if she gets us convicted’ and asked officers how much she would be getting. He suggested that even if [Girl A] ‘gets 10 people somehow convicted she’ll still get £300,000’. Later in the interview he returned to this, saying that this was to use his words ‘quick easy money’. It’s like the car crash scam.’

No hearing today (Friday 31st) the jury was sent home Thursday afternoon, to return when the case resumes on Monday morning.