Two of the defendants in a child exploitation case in Rotherham, northern England, exclaimed the Islamic phrase “Allahu Akbar,” which translates into “Allah is the greatest,” in court Thursday as they were being ushered to their jail cells after receiving their sentences. One of the victims shouted back “justice is served.”
The defendants were among six other men of the British-Pakistani Muslim community who were sentenced to jail in Sheffield Crown Court for a total of 81 and a half years over sexually abusing two “naïve and vulnerable” young girls, according to local reports Thursday. Three brothers and three other men were reportedly sentenced for 19 “vile” offenses committed against the two girls between 1999 and 2001, including rape.
One girl admitted to having sexual relationships with Basharat Dad, 32, who was jailed for 20 years for 6 counts of rape, and Nassar Dad, 36, who was jailed for 14 and a half years for rape and false imprisonment, when she was 12-years-old. In a police interview in 2001, she described how Basharat and Nassar both raped her twice, and one occasion when they imprisoned her in their apartment on top of their father’s firework shop for an entire night. She remained locked in the room, which was described in court as extremely dirty with neither electricity nor running water, until her mother came to rescue her the next day.
Another girl was sexually assaulted by the Dad brothers when she was 13. After waking up in the morning following a night where she was relentlessly supplied with marijuana and alcohol, she realized she had been raped.
More than 1,400 children were the victims of sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 from men of “Pakistani-Heritage,” according to an independent 2013 report from the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.
Rotherham had England’s the third-most segregated Muslim population, with 82 percent of the Pakistani community living in just three of the town’s council electoral districts. The ethnic minority population in Rotherham was roughly 8 percent in 2011, with the Pakistani community being the largest, according to a 2011 UK Census.
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