Rotherham child sex grooming gang ringleader Arshid Hussain jailed for 35 years

A British court has sentenced three brothers to decades in prison for raping and abusing teenage girls in the northern city of Rotherham.

Brothers Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain face sentencing today and legal proceedings to initiate deportation to Pakistan could follow.

Addressing Arshid, she said: “You and your brothers, Bannaras Hussain and Basharat Hussain, were well-known in the area – you drove distinctive cars and had a reputation for violence”. MacGregor, Ali and Davies were also found guilty after the trial. MacGregor was also convicted of two counts of conspiracy to rape.

An evil Rotherham child abuse gang who stole the childhoods of vulnerable girls have been sentenced to 102 years in jail.

But she said: “Citizenship is a privilege not a right. Their childhood and adolescence can never be reclaimed”.

The judge said: “There was a perception by some of your victims that you appeared, in their words, to “rule Rotherham”.

Many victims sat in the public gallery overlooking the packed courtroom as the gang learned their fate.

“Many of the victims were subjected to repeated abuse”.

In controlled tones, Judge Sarah Wright laid out all of their individual stories and detailed the enormous emotional toll their stolen childhood years had left on their adult lives.

“We accept there is much to do”. We are pleased for the victims.

The siblings formed a violent, gun-toting, drug-dealing family who were said to have “owned” the South Yorkshire town.

The prosecutor handed to the court a pile of victim personal statements, highlighting a comment from one girl who said the Hussain brothers had urinated on her and had acted “as a pack of animals”.

Ms Colborne said Bannaras met one victim when she was 12 or 13 and she was forced to performed sex acts on him. One was described as a “broken human being” by her sister.

The gang of four men and two women were sentenced to a combined 103 years for the rape and sexual abuse of at least 15 girls in their early teens – one victim was just 11.

Speaking after the verdicts were returned on Wednesday one of the victims said: “It’s changed everything. This can give me some closure, for me my life starts now”.

“I was waiting for that so no-one could ever blame me again”.

The convictions of the Hussain brothers and their associates is the first successful prosecution of a grooming gang in Rotherham since the child sexual exploitation scandal engulfed the town following the publication of the Jay Report.

A general view of the Police station in Rotherham, South Yorkshire August 27, 2014 in Rotherham, England.

Arshid was clearly visible on a big screen in court – appearing by video-link from Doncaster Prison.

Sheffield Crown Court sent ringleader Arshid Hussain to 35 years in jail for committing 23 serious child sexual exploitation crimes between 1987 and 2003.

Bannaras, 36, admitted 10 charges, including rape, indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, at the beginning of the trial.

Karen MacGregor, who offered young women accommodation at her home and then expected them to have sex with men, was jailed for 13 years.

Arshid, 40, and Basharat, 39, were found guilty by a jury of 50 offences.