Keighley grooming gang members given jail sentences

A group of eight men who were part of a West Yorkshire grooming gang in the late 1990s have been jailed.

Three of the men – Ibrar Hussain, 47, and brothers Imtiaz Ahmed, 62, and Fayaz Ahmed, 45 – who are all from Keighley, were sentenced for rape at Bradford Crown Court on Friday.

They were found guilty of assaults on two girls after a trial in November and December 2024.

Five other men were jailed last year for their involvement. Reporting restrictions on the case have now been lifted, meaning details can be published.

The court heard the offenders targeted two children.

Hussain and Imtiaz and Fayaz Ahmed were all sentenced for raping one of the girls, who was aged between 13 and 14 when the offences took place.

Prosecuting, Catherine Duffy described the girl as “extremely vulnerable and isolated at the time that she was targeted.”

In a victim impact statement, the woman, who is now in her 40s, said: “If I had been listened to sooner rather than later, maybe, just maybe, my life could have been different.

“I went through too much, too young, and I’m still trying to fix the trauma that other people have inflicted on me.”

Judge Ahmed Nadim said the girl’s mother had tried to report her missing to police “on a number of occasions”, but nothing was done.

Judge Nadim said police and social services were “either ill-equipped to properly understand what was happening at street level”, or “disinterested in addressing the needs of [the victims]”.

“To differing degrees the social services and police’s responses to the situation that they found themselves in was that they were the authoresses of their own misfortunes,” he said.

The victim said she was “ploughed with drugs and alcohol to numb the abuse”.

Giving evidence at trial, she recalled one instance where men had been “queuing up” in the corridor of a flat to have sex with her.

She said she was “groomed”, then “passed on to other men”, and later became addicted to alcohol and drugs, which she used as a “coping mechanism”.

“Nothing in this world can ever fix the damage I have been through – because of them I lost my identity.”

Hussain, of Mornington Street, was jailed for six-and-a-half years for two counts of rape, to be served concurrently.

Hussain smiled and waved at his family members in the public gallery before he was taken away to begin his sentence.

The court heard Imtiaz and Fayaz Ahmed absconded during a retrial last year and were believed to be abroad.

Fayaz Ahmed, formerly of Devonshire Street, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in his absence for two counts of rape.

Imtiaz Ahmed, formerly of Dawson Road, was jailed for nine years in his absence for one count of rape.

On Thursday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a three-month “rapid audit” looking at the “current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country”.

Cooper said the review would look at “ethnicity data and demographics of gangs involved and their victims”, and “cultural and societal drivers”.

The government would also support “victim-centred” local inquiries in Oldham and up to four other “pilot” areas, she said.

It comes after calls from opposition parties for a fresh inquiry into grooming gangs, including Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley Robbie Moore.

Moore said there were “many, including myself, fearing that the scale of this issue across the Bradford district will dwarf that of Rotherham”.

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