Ex-footballer jailed for serious sexual offences against victims as young as 7

A former professional footballer has been jailed for 24 years for a series of serious sexual offences against victims as young as seven.

Rapist Jonathan Diba-Musangu, a goalkeeper who was on Rochdale AFC’s books in the mid-to-late 2010s, was convicted of 12 sexual offences against six victims he targeted between 2012 and 2017, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

The 23-year-old’s youngest victim was just seven when he raped her in 2012, the CPS said, while Diba-Musangu raped a 12-year-old girl at a summer camp four years later.

He was arrested in 2018 after his victims began confiding in each other and realised they were suffering similar abuse.

Diba-Musangu denied the allegations and said those accusing him were attempting to ruin his life.

Diba-Musangu was convicted of three counts of rape of a child under 13, two counts of rape, two counts of sexually assaulting a child under 13, two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and three counts of sexual activity with a child, the CPS said.

He was sentenced on Friday at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court.