Category: news

A gang of men from Derby has been convicted of systematically grooming and sexually abusing teenage girls.

Many of the victims were given alcohol or drugs before being forced to have sex in cars, rented houses or hotels across the Midlands.

One girl described a sexual assault involving at least eight men.

The nine men were convicted during three separate trials, culminating in the convictions at Leicester Crown Court of the two ringleaders.

Reporting restrictions had been in place until the end of the third trial.

Twenty-seven girls came forward to say they had been victims, the youngest of whom was 12 and the oldest was 18. Convictions have been achieved for 15 of those.

Abid Mohammed Saddique, 27, and Mohammed Romaan Liaqat, 28 – both married with children – were said to be the leaders of the gang.

Saddique, of Northumberland Street, Normanton, Derby, was convicted of four counts of rape as well as two counts of false imprisonment, two of sexual assault, three charges of sexual activity with a child, perverting the course of justice, and aiding and abetting rape.

Liaqat, of Briar Lea Close, Sinfin, Derby, was found guilty of one count of rape, two of sexual assault, aiding and abetting rape, affray, and four counts of sexual activity with a child.

Both pleaded guilty to causing a person under the age of 18 to be involved in pornography.

They will be sentenced on 7 January.

Derbyshire Police said they believed no money changed hands between those involved, and said such instances of abuse were a growing problem in the UK.

Detectives said it had been the most horrendous case of sexual exploitation they had ever faced.

The undercover investigation by Derbyshire Police, Operation Retriever, was split into three trials which have run since February.

Speaking after the hearing, Det Insp Sean Dawson said: “These convictions have brought an end to a lengthy and complex investigation that has been brought to court thanks to the bravery of the victims in this case.

“These two men are predatory sex offenders who, with their associates, have systematically abused and raped teenage girls.

“We are shocked by the scale of abuse we have uncovered and the impact it has had on the girls who were the victims of these callous men.

“Child sex exploitation is something that parents and carers across the country should be aware of.

“Parents and carers should talk to their children, take an interest in what they are doing and warn them not to go off with strangers, no matter how tempting it might seem.”

Thirteen men were charged in relation to Operation Retriever and 11 stood trial for a string of charges, not all sexual, relating to the case.

Of the original 13, a total of nine have been convicted of offences against vulnerable girls ranging from rape to false imprisonment.

Other defendants already convicted and sentenced were: Akshay Kumar, 38, he admitted one count of causing a person under the age of 18 to be involved in pornography and was jailed for two years and 10 months.

Faisal Mehmood, 24, pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child before trial and was jailed for three years. He has now been deported to Pakistan.

Mohammed Imran Rehman, 26, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years after being found guilty of rape, while Graham Blackham, 26, was given a three-year sentence after he was convicted of two counts of breaching a sexual offences prevention order.

Liaqat’s brother Naweed Liaqat, 33, and Farooq Ahmed, 28, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and were both jailed for 18 months.

Ziafat Yasin, 31, was cleared of sex charges but pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine. He was jailed for three years.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has phoned a Republican congresswoman in the US to clarify his praise of remarks by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Mr Castro had criticised the Iranian president’s denial of the Holocaust in a September interview in The Atlantic.

Mr Netanyahu welcomed that criticism for its “deep understanding”.

But Cuban-born US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen urged Mr Netanyahu to retract his comments.

The congresswoman has long been a vocal critic of Mr Castro and she represents Florida’s 18th Congressional District, which has a large community of Cuban exiles.

Ms Ros-Lehtinen told Politico: “I just said look, this guy has been an enemy of Israel, just because he said something that a normal person would say – after 50 years of anti-Israel incitement, it’s one phrase from an old guy who doesn’t even know where he’s standing.”

But the prime minister’s office told Haaretz newspaper on Wednesday that Mr Netanyahu’s remarks “referred only to a specific article”.

Mr Netanyahu called the congresswoman when he was in the US a few weeks ago and his office said: “The prime minister made clear he hasn’t changed his position on a number of other things Castro said over the years, including over the past year, on the state of Israel.”

US relations with Cuba are still virtually non-existent, with a 50-year-old US trade embargo against the island still in place.

The Cuban leadership has often been critical of Israel’s actions, as have other leftist Latin American governments.

It is understood that Israel had seen the potential in Mr Castro’s remarks for a diplomatic raprochment between Tel Aviv and Havana.

President Shimon Peres had also welcomed Mr Castro’s remarks, writing a letter to the former Cuban leader saying the comments were “a surprising bridge between the hard reality and a new horizon.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A reform of teacher training will be at the heart of plans to overhaul what and how pupils are taught in England’s schools.

Education Secretary Michael Gove’s wide-ranging White Paper will signal a return to a traditional subjects and a push to improve discipline and teaching standards.

And he will also set schools higher baseline targets for exam results.

This means an extra 439 secondary schools could be labelled failing.

Mr Gove said England should be measuring itself against its international competitors, many of whom had been improving at a faster rate.

His schools White Paper, entitled The Importance of Teaching, to be published on Wednesday lunchtime, will set out plans to improve the quality of teacher trainees.

Research suggests good teachers are the biggest influence on children’s education and the government has already said it wants to see higher quality candidates becoming teachers.

So new recruits will face an aptitude test to assess their suitability for the job.

But Mr Gove said the “fun and enjoyment” had been squeezed out of the teaching profession in recent years by top-down targets and over-prescriptive policies.

He planned to free them up by reducing these and radically reducing the size of the obligatory part of the national curriculum,

Mr Gove wants to see more on the job training, with teachers training in schools rather than in theoretical college-based classes.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “I would like to establish a new chain of teaching schools, like teaching hospitals, truly outstanding schools, that have excelled in the past where new recruits from university can spend time observing great teachers and being observed themselves.”

He will also encourage former members of the armed forces to retrain as teachers by funding their training.

In opposition, the Conservatives talked about the merits of people going from the military into the classroom to instil order and inspire pupils.

There will be further efforts to persuade people who have had successful careers elsewhere to go into teaching through a version of the current Teachfirst scheme, to be called Teachnext.

Mr Gove will also confirm a number of measures to enforce school discipline.

This includes honouring a long-standing promise to give head teachers the ultimate say over who they can permanently exclude from schools.

In a BBC interview, Mr Gove said: “I am clear that schools have to have control of discipline and head teachers have to be captains of their ships.

“That means that head teachers have to be free to remove disruptive pupils without that disruptive pupil being reinstated.”

Struggling schools

But he said heads would have to ensure that there was suitable provision available for them elsewhere.

He is also likely to confirm plans to give teachers anonymity when facing allegations of wrongdoing and remove the need for 24 hours notice to be given ahead of detentions.

The education secretary will also confirm plans to create a new benchmark for school achievement under what will be called an English baccalaureate.

This will mean pupils will be encouraged to take GCSEs in English, maths, a science, a modern language and a humanities subject.

He believes too many schools opt for softer subjects in a bid to boost their league table position.

Mr Gove said: “I don’t think that we should say to children just because they come from a certain background that they shouldn’t expect to have any understanding of this country’s history or learn a foreign language.”

And there will be higher baseline targets for underachievement.

Schools will be considered to be “underperforming” if fewer than 35% of pupils achieve five good GCSEs (those graded A* to C).

Currently, the level is 30% and, based on 2009 data, the change would mean 439 schools would be classed as underperforming.

Mr Gove has already announced extra funding to allow struggling schools to be taken over by successful heads.

He has also warned that he is ready to use powers enshrined in the Academies Act passed this summer to force such schools to become academies under new management.

However, those below the standard but “making good progress” would get leeway.

Mr Gove told the BBC it was “not right” to have schools where two-thirds of children were not getting five basic GCSEs.

However, shadow education secretary Andy Burnham said Mr Gove was creating a “competitive, fragmented and segregated schools system”.

“There will be winners but there will also be losers. I don’t think education has to be like that. I want to have all schools as good schools and I’m not convinced Michael Gove has a plan to make that a reality,” he said.

General secretary of the NASUWT teaching union Chris Keates said Mr Gove’s plans were a “vicious assault” on teachers’ commitment and professionalism

She added that the White Paper was history repeating itself.

“The last time the Tories were in government they left behind the worst teacher recruitment and retention crisis in history.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A gang of men has been convicted of systematically grooming and sexually abusing teenage girls in Derbyshire.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

David Cameron has signalled that he would like to see former Lib Dem Treasury minister David Laws make a quick return to government.

Mr Laws resigned as chief secretary in May – just weeks after the coalition was formed – after revelations about his parliamentary expenses.

Asked if he would like Mr Laws in his top ministerial team again, Mr Cameron told journalists “yes, and soon”.

Mr Laws has indicated that he would be keen on a return to office.

He told the BBC last month that “everybody wants to be in the front line”.

The Lib Dem MP was the first minister to resign after the coalition was formed.

He quit as chief secretary to the Treasury after just 16 days in the job, following reports he had claimed expenses to pay rent to his partner, the lobbyist James Lundie.

Mr Laws apologised and said he would pay back the £40,000 he had claimed.

Asked by journalists on Wednesday whether he would like to see Mr Laws back in government, Mr Cameron said: “The short answer is, yes, and soon.”

Mr Cameron did not elaborate on the statement or the possible timing of any return.

Mr Laws won praise from his Conservative colleagues for his role in coalition negotiations and his aggressive approach to tackling the budget deficit in the short time he worked alongside Chancellor George Osborne.

Mr Laws was replaced as chief secretary by Danny Alexander, one of five Lib Dem MPs in the Cabinet.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The Finance Secretary apologises to MSPs for not informing them of his decision to allow the ‘tartan tax’ to lapse.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A Swedish court has rejected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s appeal against a detention order in a rape case.

The appeals court upheld an earlier court order, which allows investigators to bring the 39-year old Australian into custody for questioning.

Mr Assange, who is believed to be in Britain, denies the allegations, saying they are part of a smear campaign.

Wikileaks has published confidential material relating to US military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The Svea Court of Appeal has today decided to reject Julian Assange’s appeal against the Stockholm district court decision to remand him,” the court said in a statement.

“The appeals court has to a certain extent reached different conclusions than the lower court, but considers that there is still reason for the warrant,” it said.

Mr Assange is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, which stem from a visit to Sweden in August.

A Stockholm prosecutor started an investigation shortly afterwards but the case was dropped by the chief prosecutor a day later.

In September, Sweden’s Director of Prosecution, Marianne Ny, reopened the investigation but did not request Mr Assange’s detention at the time.

An international arrest warrant was issued for Mr Assange on 20 November following the detention order decision by the Swedish district court two days earlier.

When the allegations first emerged, Mr Assange said their appearance – at a time when Wikileaks had been criticised for leaking Afghan war documents – was “deeply disturbing”.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Tomas Berdych secures a 7-5 6-3 win over Andy Roddick to keep his semi-final hopes alive at the ATP World Tour Finals.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

It started, as many police investigations do, with a routine car check.

In Staffordshire, officers pulled over three men and were concerned to see two young teenagers with them. They had been reported missing from a care home in Derby.

It was not long before the newly created sexual exploitation unit at Derbyshire Police was alerted and Operation Retriever began.

What the officers uncovered now stands as one of the most serious cases of sexual abuse in recent times. After three separate trials, carried out in secret, nine men have been found guilty of offences ranging from rape to intimidating witnesses. Their victims totalled 27 teenage girls.

Two of the men in the car were Abid Saddique and and Mohammed Liaqat. Both had families and, it became apparent, both had secret lives.

They were released but put under surveillance. Council CCTV camera footage given to the BBC shows their silver BMW driving around Derby after midnight looking for teenage girls.

Spotting a pair by the side of the road, they made repeated attempts to entice the girls into their car. Police later found bottles of vodka and plastic cups hidden under the seats so victims could be offered a drink.

Officers had been monitoring the live cameras, ready to step in if any girl got into the car.

On 24 April 2009 the surveillance abruptly ended when two tearful teenagers stumbled out of a Derby flat police were watching and called 999. They claimed they had been raped. The officers had not known they were there.

In statements the girls not only made forceful accusations against Siddique and Liaqat but also named other girls the pair had abused.

That became the pattern. Each victim led to more victims. Eventually police had a list of 27 teenage girls and they arrested 13 men, aged between 26 and 38.

Det Supt Debbie Platt, who led the police investigation, said: “I was personally shocked at the scale of the abuse we uncovered. It hadn’t been reported and it was happening under the radar.

“It was like a campaign of rape against children. When you see the impact these offences have had on them it is awful.”

The girls had been carefully groomed by their abusers. Typically they would meet them on the street, be invited out for a drive, a drink, a cigarette or drugs. They would be driven to a secluded area, a park, or one of the rented houses the men lived in, and forced to have sex.

Sometimes five or six men would be involved and they would video the attacks on mobile phones. The rapes were often violent, some girls were locked up to prevent them getting away. Others were thrown out of the car when their ordeal was over.

Searching one of the flats, officers found extensive forensic evidence that the rapes had taken place.

One 16-year-old victim described the grooming in a BBC interview: “There’s part of you that thinks I’ve met this lovely nice man and he’s taken me out for a lovely nice meal and there’s part of you that looks at these men like a father figure, as weird as it sounds.”

Police believe no money changed hands between the dozen or so men involved but the girls were driven around the Midlands to be raped in houses, hotels and B&Bs. It was a form of internal people trafficking now recognised to be a growing problem in the UK.

Another worrying aspect to this case is the way in which the two key offenders deliberately targeted children who seemed vulnerable.

The 16-year-old victim said they took advantage of “the fact that no-one does care”.

“I think they are low-life people,” she said. “They haven’t got any aspirations in life and I will never ever understand what has made them so evil and ignorant that still to this day they think they’ve not done anything wrong.”

One of the girls was in a care home, another with council foster parents and many were known to social services in the city.

There are now questions about why they were allowed out at night, sometimes going missing, and whether the various agencies worked well enough together to protect them.

A serious case review, similar to those following the deaths of baby Peter Connelly and Khyra Ishaq, will be published shortly.

Baby Peter died in August 2007 at his home in north London after months of abuse, while seven-year-old Khyra died in May 2008 after being being found in an emaciated condition at her home in Birmingham.

Many of those involved in the field of child sexual exploitation see the Derby rapes as a landmark case. The charity, Barnardo’s, which works with victims of abuse has long campaigned for better training so professionals can spot the warning signs.

The girls disappeared overnight or for several days and may have generated missing persons reports. They had older boyfriends and received repeated mobile phone calls from the abusers.

Det Supt Platt says in recent years child protection has focused on younger victims in their own homes.

“Whether the abuse is a young child within the home or a vulnerable 14-year-old outside the home, it’s still child abuse and we do need a nationally co-ordinated response to address both types of abuse,” she said.

This case came after others in Rochdale, Preston and Rotherham, where groups of Asian men had been found guilty of grooming and raping girls.

The Operation Retriever officers decline to draw conclusions from the ethnicity of the group. “Look at the sexual offenders list,” said one senior officer. “It’s mainly white men.”

But police agree these cases may suggest a willingness for abusers with shared ethnic backgrounds to work in gangs, rather than alone.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.