Grooming gangs: 12-year-old girl taken to Alton Towers before being ‘overpowered’ by alleged abuser, court told

Rashid is one of six defendants facing sex abuse charges relating to three women when they were girls in Rochdale. All defendants deny the charges against them.

According to the prosecution’s case, two girls, known as Girl A and Girl C, knew each other and were allegedly abused from 2005 by several men; the other complainant, known as Girl B, did not know the others and was allegedly targeted from the late 1980s.

The jury heard that Rashid allegedly groomed Girl B by giving her money, buying her clothes and taking her places, including to Alton Towers.

The prosecution claimed that even at 19 years old, Mr Rashid was showing “all the hallmarks of knowing just how to groom and manipulate a child”.

But Mr Scamardella said that his “kindness and generosity” soon became “aggression and intimidation.”

Rashid was “intimidating and aggressive” towards the girl that he had “no doubt” was a young schoolgirl, on one occasion driving to her school.

The abuse was alleged to have happened from 1988 to 1991.

The jury heard that the abuse was “incredibly painful” and that Rashid “kept on shushing her”.

Mr Scamardella alleged that through a combination of “threats, aggression and force,” Girl B was taken to several properties in Rochdale where Rahid sexually abused her.

On one occasion, with Rashid’s uncle present in a property, the jury was told that Girl B was taken to a room upstairs “which contained nothing but a dirty double mattress” before she was allegedly forced to have sex with him.

The prosecution described another alleged rape where Girl B was driven to the foreground of a warehouse. She was said to be alone with him in his car, where she was allegedly raped again.

“He had now raped her three times and she had not told a soul,” claimed Mr Scamardella.

In 2014, in an interview with the police, the court heard that she said: “I couldn’t tell anybody, I just felt too ashamed, I just couldn’t voice it, I just couldn’t speak out, I don’t know why, I just couldn’t.”

The prosecution described another occasion when Girl B was allegedly attacked at her own home while her mother was out at work.

Another count of rape that Rashid faces revolves around alleged attacks at the house of a woman in Rochdale.

The house was described as “grim” with no floor coverings. Girl B was said to remember going there regularly, but on the occasion she was allegedly assaulted there, Rashid was said to have “bit her hard”.

He then allegedly “raped her for the final time”, having “overpowered her.”

“Her 12 or 13-year-old body, as she was at the time, was unable to do anything to fight him off,” added the prosecution.

Rashid was described as a “menacing prospect” and the prosecution claimed that he “forced sex onto that 12 or 13-year-old girl who had a slender frame.”

But the jury heard that Girl B was “not the last girl” to be subjected to the “unhealthy interests” of Rashid, with the prosecution alleging that he also attacked Girl A and Girl C.

Tahir Rashid, 54, faces 12 counts of rape, three counts of indecent assault, and one count of assault by penetration.

Mohammed Saleem, 46, faces eight counts of rape.

Sucklane Shah, 46, faces two counts of rape.

Arshad Mohammed, 53, faces five counts of rape.

Itfaq Hussain, 45, faces three counts of rape.

Amjad Mahmood, 55, faces 12 counts of rape, two counts of indecency with a child, one count of indecent assault, two counts of assault by penetration.

The men deny all charges.

The trial continues.

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