UK Leicester Child Prostitution Trial: 'Other Sikh Girls' Involved With Men

[spnadmin]

This story needs eventually to be merged with pre-existing threads as we had been following the beginning of the arrests and trial. For now it is free-standing, at least until I find those earlier threads.



Leicester child prostitution trial: 'Other Sikh girls' involved with men

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23506795

Men 'paid for sex with girl, 16'

A child prostitution trial has heard that "other Sikh girls" were involved with men who paid a 16-year-old girl for sex.

The girl told police she had been selling sex after she found out other girls were being "spoken to" by the men, Leicester Crown Court heard.

Three men from Leicester are on trial accused of sexual offences against her.

Aabidali Mubarak Ali, 39, Rakib Iacub, 20, and Wajid Usman, 22, deny all of the 22 charges.

Three other men have already pleaded guilty to related charges.
'Not the only girl'

In a police interview played to jurors, the girl said other Sikh people in Leicester had approached her family with concerns their daughters might be "in the same situation".


They knew why I drank, because it eases my sorrow”

Girl, 16, in police interview

She told police: "I've been told I'm not the only girl. There are other Sikh girls."

She added that it worried her that other girls could be involved.

The girl told police that she needed to make money because she wanted to leave home after her parents threatened to kick her out.

Jurors have heard that the girl had already been having sex with friends for money before she met the men.

The men would pick her up from college, the court heard, and take her to various locations where she was paid up to £30 for sex.

Opening the case for the prosecution, barrister Matthew Lowe described her as "very damaged and vulnerable".

'Promised shopping trips'

She abused alcohol and smoked cannabis, he said, and had a problematic relationship with her parents.

She told police: "They [the men] knew why I drank, because it eases my sorrow."

She was told money was no problem and promised shopping trips and holidays, jurors heard.

All three defendants on trial are accused of paying for sex with the 16-year-old.

Mr Ali, of Guthlaxton Street, and Mr Iacub, of Maynard Road, are also accused of facilitating child prostitution, and trafficking the girl by taking her to various locations and introducing her to other men.

Mr Usman, of East Park Road, is also accused of inciting child pornography.

The trial continues

 

[dalsingh1zero1]

Note the British police reluctance to deal with the matter.


It takes a violent 'vigilante' attack on one of the alleged locations of abuse and 'community tensions' to make them prosecute.


But I'm not surprised because they even turned a blind eye to hordes of young, vulnerable, poor white girls being abused in this way for decades.

My feelings are that given the right wing and media here will strongly highlight the above type of activities against white girls, will the paedophiles now target more Sikh girls to keep under the radar?

 

[spnadmin]

Note the British police reluctance to deal with the matter.


It takes a violent 'vigilante' attack on one of the alleged locations of abuse and 'community tensions' to make them prosecute.


But I'm not surprised because they even turned a blind eye to hordes of young, vulnerable, poor white girls being abused in this way for decades.

My feelings are that given the right wing and media here will strongly highlight the above type of activities against white girls, will the paedophiles now target more Sikh girls to keep under the radar?

This article is about Sikh Girls. There have been 2 separate scandals going on simultaneously in 2 different parts of UK: one involving white girls, and one involving Asian girls. After a hiatus - I presume because trials were gearing up following arraignments - coverage has now resumed. Are there not laws in UK preventing constant coverage of criminal cases without a judicial ruling to the contrary?

The case in Leicester drew a lot of coverage and instigated a major revision in how police began to address such crimes. One of the major obstacles for them was the "political correctness" issue insofar as charges that Pakistanis were being profiled. If you page through our archives you may find the earliest coverage of this particular story.

 

[dalsingh1zero1]

This article is about Sikh Girls. There have been 2 separate scandals going on simultaneously in 2 different parts of UK: one involving white girls, and one involving Asian girls. After a hiatus - I presume because trials were gearing up following arraignments - coverage has now resumed. Are there not laws in UK preventing constant coverage of criminal cases without a judicial ruling to the contrary?

My point was that we've become accustomed to front page spreads of mugshots of suspects in cases such as these all over the printed media in the last few years. None of this occurred in the Sikh case.

Whether that is because brown girls are less of a concern (especially with right leaning papers) or that such stories have now become so commonplace that the papers now no longer consider them front page material, I don't know?

As Sikhs we need to be careful because we have been systematically let down on this matter for a while now. Hopefully things are changing for the better, but lets not be complacent or naive.

The case in Leicester drew a lot of coverage and instigated a major revision in how police began to address such crimes. One of the major obstacles for them was the "political correctness" issue insofar as charges that Pakistanis were being profiled. If you page through our archives you may find the earliest coverage of this particular story.

Like I said earlier, normally you'll go out and about and see blown up pictures of suspects on front pages outside shops. This is not done without a conscious decision by the print media to bring the matter to the forefront of the public's imagination. Didn't see that in this case. The coverage largely seems to be Internet based.

Plus I'll give Leicester police the benefit of the doubt. If it had been the London Met, maybe not so much as they have been implicated in so much racist behaviour lately. Especially with trying to defame people involved in anti-racism movements, including people who've tried to seek justice for murdered relatives.

The recent Jimmy Saville case is also of import because it shows the police pretty much repeatedly ignoring complaints of underage sexual abuse:

http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/story/2013-03-11/jimmy-savile-police-investigation/


There are a lot of uncomfortable things lurking about around this whole problem, so lets not walk around naively.

A heartfelt thank you to the Sikh Awareness Society (SAS) for their relentless campaigning to make both our own community and the British establishment face up to this.

We need to protect our most vulnerable from predators and we need to change the way our elders all too often bury their heads in the sand about such things.

 

[spnadmin]

I agree that the learning curve is far too slow and too many people have agendas that are not focused on prevention or on the victims. Part of me does want to give the police the benefit of the doubt because they are civil servants and when push comes to shove respond to pressure from politicians --- whose first objective is to get elected, and whose second objective is to stay in office. Their agenda is mostly about counting votes to be possibly won, and discounting the number of votes to be possibly lost. How can they spin things to appear to care? Sometimes that means they tie the hands of law enforcement -- it can be good public relations -- and it never seems to backfire on the politicians, only on the victims.

The press is another sorry story.