The Oxford Rape gang trial of 2013. Sentencing remarks.

Readers will recall our frustration at the bland and underplayed reporting of the trials of the gangs of frequently Muslim men who have raped, abused and pimped young English girls for a generation.

There are circumstances when it is quite proper to place restrictions on reporting trials, ie to protect the names of the innocent victims, to delay the jury hearing about other cases involving those defendants until after conviction, or because the matters discussed will endanger undercover investigations by police or security service are the most obvious reasons.  But in the last 5 years I cannot shake off the conviction that this is being used to prevent the public from knowing the extent of the crimes because the authorities fear our anger. Too often all we hear is a brief paragraph that X, being convicted or rape was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and his brother Y also convicted of rape to 12 years.

This is a contrast to the reporting 12 years ago of the gang who operated in Oxford. While Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford are shocking in the sheer numbers of girls raped over a 20 year period, Oxford was notable for the depths of sexual sadism vented on little girls. Some of this reached the newspapers, and it was very much to the credit of the editor and proprietor of the Oxford Mail that a reporter was in court (The Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey in London) virtually every day with a report in the paper every day.

This no longer happens.

Anyway somebody has found a link to the sentencing remarks of His Honour Judge Peter Rook QC at the end of that trial. R v  Dogar, Dogar, Jamil, Karrar and Karrar on the 27th June 2013.

There is such a thing as ‘witness statement porn’. There was at one time a flourishing currency in other sex offenders witness statements within prison. At that time it was a prisoner’s right to have possession of the statements made against him by witnesses and other prisoners got a kick out of reading them. I believe (but do not know for certain – the law and opinion move on) that this was changed to access only when meeting with lawyers.

For that reason I am not going to quote here from the remarks. But if you want to know why we rage with such anger about the rape gangs follow this link and read Page 4 Para 21) or Pages 10-11 Para 50 -55.

This is in the public domain within a Ministry of Justice website so I can and do link to it (it comes up as a PDF). I’m used to ferreting round legal websites but one can always learn something new and I will see what else I can find within.