Rotherham child sex exploitation: Eight men jailed for up to 19 years over 'degrading and violent' acts

The men 'sexualised' their victims and subjected them to acts of a 'degrading and violent nature'

The eight men were found guilty of all 19 charges including rape and false imprisonment (PA)

Eight men have been jailed for up to 19 years for sexually exploiting teenage girls in Rotherham.

The eight men were sentenced after the court heard they “sexualised” their victims and, in some instances, subjected them to acts of a “degrading and violent nature”.

They were convicted on 17 October after the jury found them guilty of all 19 charges including rape and false imprisonment.

One victim, now 27, told police and their MP and then home secretary David Blunkett about the abuse, before her family eventually moved to Spain to get away from the men.

The court heard this victim had gone to the police in 2003, saying she had been repeatedly raped by Sageer Hussain when she was 13.

Judge Sarah Wright, who jailed Mr Hussain for 19 years, said he had conducted a “campaign of violent rape” against the vulnerable 13-year-old.

The men jailed on Friday were Sageer Hussain, 30; Mohammed Whied, 32; Ishtiaq Khaliq, 33; Waleed Ali, 34; Asif Ali, 30; Masoued Malik, 32; Basharat Hussain, 40; and Naeem Rafiq, 33.

The National Crime Agency has since said it is separately investigating more than 11,100 lines of inquiry relating to non-familial child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2003.

Professor Alexis Jay's 2014 inquiry, commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council, found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in the town between 1997 and 2013.