Sex gang leader jailed for 22 years

The ringleader of a gang of Asian men who groomed young white girls for sex has been jailed for 22 years for a "campaign of rape" against a young Asian girl.

Shabir Ahmed, 59, led a child sex exploitation ring of nine men who targeted vulnerable young girls in the Rochdale and Oldham areas.

He was jailed for 19 years in May following an 11-week trial at Liverpool Crown Court. He has received another prison term - to run concurrently - after he was convicted in June of 30 specimen counts of child rape.

A jury heard he raped and sexually abused the Asian youngster over many years and treated her as a "possession" whom he used for his own sexual gratification.

Ahmed, formerly of Windsor Road, Oldham, will in effect serve an additional three years to the sentence imposed at Liverpool Crown Court.

Sentencing him at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, Judge Mushtaq Khokhar was forced to remove Ahmed from the dock before he passed sentence as he was persistently interrupted by the defendant.

Before his ejection, Ahmed shouted: "It's all lies. It's all concocted by the police." He then looked over at the Press bench and snarled: "What are you looking at?"

The court heard that Ahmed remained "in denial" of his guilt of the repeated rapes of his victim for more than a decade.

His victim was "completely vulnerable" and too young to understand what was happening to her when he first abused her. It then became a case of control and power amid a background of "intimidation and coercion", said the judge. On occasion she would protest and cry but Ahmed would continue, he added. At this remark, Ahmed shouted: "You missed my protest."

The jury in his trial was told that the victim felt a sense of shame about what happened to her, which stopped her reporting it to the police for many years. The court heard the victim suffered from low self-confidence and had been forced to move away because she cannot face people in her community.