Six men involved in Aylesbury child sex ring are jailed for more than 82 years

Jailed: Vikram Singh, Asif Hussain, Arshad Jani, Mohammed Imran, Akbari Khan, and Taimoor Khan
PA
Paul Cheston7 September 2015
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Six men involved in a child sex ring in Aylesbury were sentenced today to more than 82 years in prison.

They had been convicted at the Old Bailey of 20 charges ranging from multiple rape to prostitution and administering substances with intent to have sex, all between 2006 and 2012.

The victims were two schoolgirls and the sustained abuse were gruesome echoes of other sex abuse scandals in Oxford, Rochdale and Rotherham.

Later the victim known as Girl B revealed her lawyers are set to sue the local social services who were meant to protect her for negligence.

She described the sentences handed out today as “academic because no sentence could ever put right what happened".

But she added: “However, what today does present is an opportunity for me and others like me.

“It’s an opportunity for all of us to say to the government and to social services, whose job it is to protect vulnerable people, that it is time to sit down and listen to our experiences, and I mean actually listen and reflect on what is happening in this country.

“This would go a long way in helping them to be able to understand the problems that exist, to enable them to prevent things like this from happening to others in the future.”

Her solicitor Alan Collins added: “It is without doubt that if social services had done more to protect the victims and spotted the crucial signs that something was wrong, we wouldn’t be here today.

“However, the sentencing of these individuals does not make up for the failings. As a consequence, we will now be taking legal action against Buckinghamshire County Council for their negligence in this case which resulted in the unnecessary suffering of these victims.”

Girl B was the victim in three of the 20 charges that resulted in convictions.

Both girls, who were just 12 and 13 when the abuse started, came from troubled backgrounds and wanted to feel grown up when they were befriended by men who groomed them.

The men showered them with inexpensive gifts such as alcohol, DVDs, food from McDonald’s and occasionally drugs and subjected them to horrifying abuse.

The victims were then passed between men “on the grapevine".

Sentencing, Judge John Bevan QC said that why the defendants, all from Asian backgrounds, had “focused their attention on under age white girls was unexplained.”

But he added: “I have no doubt that availability played a substantial part and also inadequate parenting leading to rebellious children lacking supervision provided the opportunity.

“I also have no doubt that if they had pursued Asian girls there would have been a high price to pay in their community.”

The judge said the 13-year-old girl was “a vulnerable victim and not somebody to be taken advantage of in the grotesque way she was and to an responsible adult that would have been blindingly obvious.”

Mohammed Imran, 38 of Bradford was sentenced to 19 and a half years and was told he “bore a substantial responsibility for (the victim’s ) prostitution”.

“I regard his involvement as the most cynical and harmful of all the defendants,” said the judge.

Vikram Singh, 45, of Aylesbury, received a 17-and-a-half year sentence, Asif Hussain, 33 of Milton Keynes, was sentenced to 13-and-a-half years, Arshad Jani, 33 of Aylesbury, to 13 years, Akbari Khan, 36 of Aylesbury, to 16 years and Taimoor Khan, 29 of Aylesbury, to three years.

During the trial the jury was told the ring had acted with "total disregard of the law and the legal prohibition on the sexual abuse of children".

Prosecutor Oliver Saxby QC said some of the men were married and had children, with some working in the market and a few working as taxi drivers.

One of the two victims estimated that she had sex with 60 men between the ages of 12 and 16.

Mr Saxby said: “Both girls were from unstable backgrounds, making them perfect targets. Their lives were ‘off the rails’.

“They were looking for excitement. For attention. For somewhere to hang out, away from school and home. They were wanting to feel grown up and looked after.

“And they were easy prey for a group of men wanting casual sexual gratification that was easy, regular and readily available.”

Woman A said: “It wasn’t particularly me looking for them. It was them looking for me. It’s just that they pass your number around.

“Or you’re with one of them and they invite three or four of their friends round and then you have to sleep with them.”

The court heard that the grooming by Singh of Woman A was typical of the ring.

He met her in the toy department of Woolworths when she was 12 years old and had gone into town with a friend to watch the Christmas lights being switched on.

The pair exchanged numbers and Singh took Woman A to the cinema to see one of the Santa Claus movies, during the showing they sat at the back.

She said that Singh tried to touch her leg and kiss her, then afterwards they went to McDonald's.

In the weeks that followed Singh lavished Woman A with small gifts like food, drink and DVDs, which led to him visiting her home while her mother was out, and having sex.

This was to be the start of a cycle of abuse with the pair would meet two or three times a week, sometimes in a car or round the back of an Aylesbury nursing home.

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