A grooming gang leader who thought he was ‘almost untouchable’ while raping two white schoolgirls in Rochdale has been jailed for 35 years.
Mohammed Zahid, 65, known as ‘Boss Man’, gave free underwear from his lingerie stall at Rochdale Indoor Market to both teenagers, with money, alcohol and food, in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends.
The father-of-three was one of seven Asian men convicted in June, by a jury at Manchester Minshull Street Court, of committing various sexual offences against the girls between 2001 and 2006.
Both were treated as ‘sex slaves’ from the age of 13, said prosecutors, and expected to have sex ‘whenever and wherever’ the defendants and other men wanted, in filthy flats, on rancid mattresses, in cars, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses.
Girl A told the jury she could have been targeted by more than 200 offenders as her phone number was swapped in the town but said ‘there was that many it was hard to keep count’.
Giving evidence, Girl B said she was living in a local children’s home when she was preyed on by Zahid and fellow market traders Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, and Kasir Bashir, 50, who were all born in Pakistan.
She said she presumed various agencies knew what was going on as police regularly picked her up after social workers labelled her a ‘prostitute’ from the age of 10.
Zahid, of Station Road, Crumpsall, thought he was ‘almost untouchable’ as he brazenly visited the care home to pick her up and later drop her off, the court heard.
He was convicted of raping Girl A and Girl B, who did not know each other, on multiple occasions.
Jurors also found him guilty of offences of indecency with a child and procuring a child to have sex.
In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years after he was convicted of engaging in sexual activity in 2005 and 2006 with a 14-year-old girl whom he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school.
This Is Not Right
On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a year-long campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.
With the help of our partners at Women’s Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.
You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk.
Read more:
He was one of many men who called her phone number ‘out of the blue’ and went on to groom the ‘extremely vulnerable’ teenager.