A market trader accused of repeatedly raping two teenage girls was labelled a “gangster” by one of his co-accused, a jury has heard.
Mohammed Zahid was said to have given free underwear from his lingerie stall on Rochdale Market to both complainants, along with money, alcohol and food, in return for regular sex with him and other Asian men in the town.
He is on trial at Manchester Minshull Street along with seven other men accused of various sex offences against the two girls, referred to as Girl A and Girl B to protect their anonymity, between 2001 and 2006.
Mr Zahid denies all the allegations, as do Kashir Bashir, Mushtaq Ahmed, Roheez Khan, Mohammed Shahzad, Nisar Hussain, Naheem Akram and Arfhan Khan.
Girl A contacted Greater Manchester Police in 2015 to say she had been the victim of child sexual exploitation and Girl B later followed with similar allegations.
Prosecutors said all the men were “broadly speaking” either taxi drivers or connected to Rochdale market.
Mr Zahid, known as ‘Bossman’, allegedly abused one of the teenagers, Girl B, from the age of 13, on an unwashed mattress in the “grim, cold, dark” basement of a town centre clothes shop belonging to Mushtaq Ahmed, who is also accused of raping her.
Both men were aged in their mid-40s at the time, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court has heard.
‘Gangsters’
When arrested, Mr Ahmed initially told detectives he did not know Mr Zahid or another market trader, Kasir Bashir, who is also alleged to have raped Girl B, but then later told them he had lied.
Prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC told jurors: “He went on to tell the police that while he was not involved he was aware that Mr Zahid and Mr Bashir took girls to his shop for sex.”
Mr Ahmed had said he was scared of the men and sold his shop because of them, while he later told police Mr Bashir and Mr Zahid were “gangsters”, Mr Scamardella said.
“He maintained the girls only attended the store when he was not present.”
Mr Zahid denied all the allegations against him, including raping Girl A from the age of 14, and stated to police he was “well known” in Rochdale because of his market stall and that he had been “mistakenly identified”.
‘Easy money’
Taxi driver Mohammed Shahzad, accused of multiple rapes of Girl A, told detectives he had nothing to do with the alleged incidents.
The court was told Mr Shahzad thought Girl A was trying to “fix people up” in turn for “quick easy money”.
“He said to the police that (Girl A) would be paid £30,000 for every person she locked up and she was doing this for the financial compensation,” Mr Scamardella said.
“At one stage he said to the police ‘I’m not being funny if 60 people were raping her and doing all sorts of stuff to her she wouldn’t be alive today’.”
Another taxi driver, Nisar Hussain, denied raping Girl A and told police he did not know her personally, the court heard.
Mr Scamardella said: “He said that he knew her name because ‘in the last year, pretty much every Asian I went to school with has been picked up for this same girl’.
“The Crown say that may be the case as she had been abused by so many Asian men she may well have been known to him.”
The trial continues.
Action Line has information of where support can be found for anyone affected by sexual abuse (current or historic) including sources of support for children, young people and adults.
