Confidential grooming gang files exposed after legal war as horrifying details emerge

His call followed a GB News bulletin earlier this year in which Open Justice UK - which calls for more transparency of court records - demanded the release of the transcripts.

The court documents were only unveiled after a protracted legal battle by Open Justice UK. It is the first bulk release of privately held court transcripts in UK history.

They include details of 385 convictions across 90 grooming gangs across the country and expose shocking accounts of systematic child sexual exploitation, which had remained largely hidden from public view for years.

They show how young girls and teenagers were groomed, captured, tied up, raped - often by numerous men one after another - and subjected to horrific abuse including one victim having a ‘cigarette stubbed out on her chest” and another tied up, covered with a sheet and then burnt with boiling water poured over her feet.

The transcripts - official sentencing remarks delivered by judges - also provide documented evidence of institutional failures across police, care sector, local government and the scale of abuse by predominantly Pakistani grooming gangs.

The court records show victims have since struggled with depression, self harm and eating disorders.The first five of the transcripts have been unveiled tonight.

The other 85 are expected to be released over the next few weeks. One - which dates back to February 2016 - exposes the case of notorious brothers Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain - known locally as Mad Ash, Bash and Bono.

The case culminated in lengthy prison sentences for the family and their associates.

The court documents show how the gang treated 15 vulnerable girls like disposable property.

Over more than a decade they: Groomed girls from age 11.

Beat them, tied them up, stamped on them.

Burned with cigarettes.

Forced them into sex with multiple men.

Tied up, raped.

Trafficked them across the country.

Left them terrified to report anything with threats harm to their families.

One girl was dragged into a car boot and transported to London to be raped by strangers and another was tied up, covered in a sheet and forced to have sex.

When she tried to escape she recalls the smell of petrol and was told her feet would be set alight.

She then had hot water poured over them.

One victim was forced to handle drugs and guns and work as a prostitute for the gang, while a another became pregnant when she was 14 as a result of rape but she was forced by her abusers to have a termination.

A judge described the harm as “devastating”.

Arshid was sentenced for 35 years, Basharat 25, Bannaras 19, and others up to 13 years.

Another transcript from a case heard in November 2018, reveals how ringleader Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar and two associates - Nabeel Khurshid (“the bully”) and Iqlak Yousef (“the quiet one”) - sexually exploited five vulnerable children between 1998 and 2005.

The victims included two sisters who had been abandoned by both parents and lived with their grandfather.

One 14-year-old girl was: Threatened.

Forced to submit.

Raped by multiple men.

Left pregnant and later pushed into a termination.

Taken to Sherwood Forest and raped by two men under threat of being left there.

The men were sentenced to up to 23 years.

A third case heard in February 2017 involved a group known as the Dad brothers.

Basharat, Nasar and Tayab Dad, along with Amjad Ali, Matloob Hussain, and Mohammed Sadiq, groomed and raped two extremely vulnerable girls between 1999 and 2001. One victim was aged 12.

The court heard she was:

Given alcohol and drugs.

Raped repeatedly above a shop.

Forced into oral sex.

Locked overnight in a squalid flat with no food, water, or electricity.

So intoxicated she couldn’t remember the rape that made her pregnant in 2001 when she was aged 12.

DNA later confirmed Amjad Ali as the father.

Another 14-year-old victim of this gang was:

Groomed.

Given alcohol/drugs.

Regularly raped by Basharat over two months.

Sometimes raped while unconscious.

Judge Wright called both victims’ evidence “bravery beyond measure.”

The men were sentenced to up to 20 years, with extended licence terms for older defendants.

In a fourth case heard in November 2017 in Sheffield Crown Court, Sajid Ali (16), Zaheer Iqbal (17), and Riaz Makhmood (17) - systematically raped and abused a vulnerable 13-year-old girl through a carefully orchestrated grooming process.

She was identified by the men as having low self esteem before they befriended her by supplying her with alcohol and tobacco, breaking down her boundaries then degrading and humiliating her before raping her between them.

Judge Dixon said: "Her bravery is of the highest order".

Sajid Ali was sentenced to seven and a half years, Zaheer Iqbal: seven and a half years, Riaz Makhmood: six years, nine months.

And in a fifth case heard in March this year, brothers Robert Evans, (37) and Mark Evans (40) who were found guilty of raping vulnerable girls as young as 13 in Rotherham 18 years ago.

The brothers manipulated their victims, plied them with drugs and alcohol before luring them to various locations including a derelict barn, alleyways where they were attacked.

Two of their victims, aged 13 and 14 at the time, were raped by both brothers.

The girls were left in pain and distress. Mark Evans was sentenced to 14 years and Robert to 17 years in prison.

Open Justice UK argues that releasing details encourages victims to come forward and improves awareness among authorities responsible for safeguarding children.

The organisation is pushing for legal reforms to ensure court records are made publicly available if it deems them of national significance.

Last April, Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick called for the release of transcripts from grooming gang trials.

Speaking to GB News, he declared it is "completely wrong" for the judges to reject such requests, and adds "further insult to injury" for the victims and survivors of the gangs."

Mr Jenrick also wrote a letter to Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood claiming that a "fragmented and unpredictable" approach to releasing transcripts could have an effect on open justice.

In an interview at the time he said: "It is deeply concerning that the public can't access historic rape gang trial transcripts. These aren't just legal documents, they're historical documents that tell the story in detail of some of the worst crimes in our recent history - how they were committed, how they were covered up and enabled and then finally exposed and brought to justice.

"And the fact that some judges are choosing to deny organisations the right to put them in the public domain, despite the fact that these were trials that were heard in public anyway, this was all on the public record."

Director of Open Justice UK, Adam Wren said: “These transcripts document horrific crimes against children. The detailed nature of what occurred, the patterns of offending, the trafficking between towns, the failures of authorities, needs to be in the public domain. This scandal persisted for so long because people could turn a blind eye out of ignorance. Care workers, government officials, and the public need to understand the unique nature of these crimes to prevent them happening again.

"Acquiring all of the transcripts will help the public to answer questions people have had for decades: at what scale girls were abused? How interconnected are the abusers? This is a first step, with more releases to come. But this transparency shouldn’t require a crowdfunded organisation to identify cases, pay fees, and publish documents, this is what you should expect as standard from the justice system.“

A Government spokesperson said: “The grooming gangs scandal was one of the darkest moments in this country’s history, and there will be no hiding place for those who abused the most vulnerable in our society.

“We have announced a statutory, national inquiry which will explicitly examine the ethnicity and religion of offenders and root out state failure wherever it occurred.”