Huddersfield grooming gang members to be sentenced over abuse of girls

Mohammed Akram, Niaz Ahmed, Mohammed Imran Ibrar and Asif Bashir were all convicted at Leeds Crown Court last month of a string of sex offences relating to three victims between 2004 and 2010.

Their trial was the third to involve members of a 20-strong grooming gang who abused 15 girls between 2004 and 2011 when the victims were aged 11 to 17.

So far, 16 members of the gang who were convicted during the first two trials have already been sentenced to a total of 221 years behind bars.

One of those already sentenced is the group's ringleader, Amere Singh Dhaliwal, 36, of Holly Road, Huddersfield, who was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 18 years.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC told him: "Your treatment of these girls was inhuman."

Speaking about the group's activities during a sentencing hearing in June, Judge Marson said: "The extent and gravity of your offending far exceeds anything which I have previously encountered."

He added children's lives had been "ruined" and families "profoundly affected" by the grooming.

Akram, 33, Ahmed, 54, Ibrar, 34, and Bashir, 33, will be sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Thursday, having been convicted of 10 offences.

When opening their trial, prosecutor Richard Wright QC said some of the three girls were "plied with drink and drugs to the point of being utterly unable to resist the sexual advances that were made against them".

Akram, of Springdale Street, Huddersfield, was convicted of two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation and two of rape, while Ahmed, of Woodthorpe Terrace, Huddersfield, was found guilty of sexual assault and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Ibrar, of Manchester Road, Huddersfield, was found guilty of trafficking for sexual exploitation and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, while Bashir, of Thornton Lodge Road, Huddersfield, was found guilty of rape and attempted rape