Men admit series of sex attacks on girl

Leeds Crown Court heard the 15-year-old was ‘used and abused’ by men who ‘treated her as little more than an object’.

On Wednesday Mohammed Ali Rehman, 26, admitted three counts of rape and one attempted rape during one night in Ravensthorpe.

Co-accused Faisar Younas, 23, admitted sexual activity with a child after denying rape charges.

The pleas were accepted by the prosecution and the trial, which started on Monday, was halted.

Judge Scott Wolstenholme discharged the jury and instructed them to find three other men who were charged with other sexual offences not guilty.

He told jurors that another man, Larasab Hussain, who had appeared as a defendant in the trial on Monday, had already changed his plea and admitted sexually assaulting the girl.

Sharon Beattie, prosecuting, said the Crown had reviewed the situation following the three guilty pleas and, with the girl’s welfare in mind, had decided to abandon the trial.

Judge Wolstenholme apologised to the jury for the ‘dreadful’ mobile phone videos of the girl’s ordeal that they had been shown during the trial.

The court heard on Monday that the offences all took place overnight on May 11, 2010.

The victim had drunk a bottle of vodka with her friend before they went to Rehman’s home in Sackville Street, Ravensthorpe, to buy cannabis.

There they drank more and at about 9pm the girl’s friend left.

Rehman said the girl could sleep at his house to sober up. Instead he led her upstairs and raped her.

Mrs Beattie said: “What it demonstrates is right from the off, Mohammed Ali Rehman was set on this girl being available for the sexual gratification of himself and his friends.”

Jurors heard that Rehman then carried the girl over his shoulder – because she was too drunk to walk – to the home of Faisar Younas in Myrtle Road.

Mrs Beattie told the court: “It is clear that by the time they had left that address, they knew the complainant was being sought by her family or the police, and they left the house despite that.”

At Younas’ house Rehman asked the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to perform a sexual act upon him. She initially refused, but then did as he asked.

Mrs Beattie said: “She said ‘no’. She may have complied, she may have acquiesced but she did not consent.”

Parts of the night’s events were filmed on a mobile phone and six clips were shown to the jury and the defendants on Monday and Tuesday.

Mrs Beattie said: “What is clear is the attitude of Mohammed Ali Rehman and others towards her. She was being treated as little more than an object, something to be used and abused.

“There was no question of her giving consent to any of the sexual activities that took place between her and these men.”

Hussain then picked up the girl and her abusers in his taxi and took them to Asda.

Rehman got a bottle of whisky from the supermarket and the group went to another address.

The girl asked to leave and Rehman said she could if she performed a sexual act upon him.

She was then told she had to do the same to Hussain, but when she started to cry she was told she no longer had to.

Instead the girl was told to go and have a shower, where she was sexually assaulted by Hussain.

The girl was taken back to the house in Sackville Street where she was found by police the following morning.

She was interviewed by police on May 20 and assigned a social worker, but it was not until October 2010 that the allegations came to light in full.

Mrs Beattie said DNA recovered from the girl’s clothes suggested she had engaged in sexual activities with Rehman and Younas.

Before the trial they both admitted having sex with the girl, but said that it was consensual

Hussain, 46, of Headfield Road, Savile Town; Rehman, now of Tanhouse Street, and Younas, now of Textile Street, will be sentenced later..

Hassan Rehman, 19, of Tanhouse Street, and Wahid Hussain, 20, of Broomer Street, were found not guilty of attempted rape.

Saqib Hussain, 31, of Huddersfield Road, was cleared of sexual assault.