Two paedophile cousins have been handed lengthy prison sentences after being found guilty of grooming and sexually abusing five vulnerable teenage girls in Bury during the late 1990s.
Manzorr Hussain, 54, was handed a 30-year term while his cousin Imtiaz Ali, 53, received 28 years following a four-week trial at Minshull Street Crown Court.
Both men operated market stalls in the town and targeted girls aged between 13 and 16.
A third man, Ghulam Hussain, 64, the older brother of Manzorr Hussain, was described as the “main man” who abused teenage girls before “passing them around” to his relatives.
He was charged with multiple sexual offences but fled the country before trial and is believed to be in Pakistan.
Passing sentence, Judge Bernadette Baxter told the pair: “You have shown not one jot of remorse or insight into your behaviour. You groomed, sexually abused and exploited the teen girls. Your offending can properly be described as a campaign of rape.”
The court heard how the defendants manipulated their victims by providing them with alcohol, drugs, lifts and somewhere to spend time as part of a calculated grooming process.
Prosecutor Anna Pope told the jury: “The girls were made to feel like they owed something to these men in return. The sexual activity which then took place was not with their true consent.”
Paedophile cousins Manzorr Hussain and Imtiaz Ali were jailed for 58 years for grooming five teenage girls
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GREATER MANCHESTER POLICE
The offending occurred primarily in Bury but extended to other parts of Greater Manchester and Wales, taking place in houses, hotels, cars and vans.
The abuse left devastating and lasting scars on the survivors. One victim, shielded by screens as she tearfully addressed the court, described enduring three years of rape and sexual assault from the age of 13, resulting in “30 years of shame”.
In her victim impact statement, she said: “I was shamed. I was ashamed. I was labelled. These crimes made me feel disgusting and dirty. I felt like a lesser person. I have lived in a perpetual cycle of fear.”
She continued: “They stole my identity before it had a chance to ever fully form. I am now free. I know now there is nothing wrong with me… there is something wrong with you. That shame should never have been mine to carry, it was all yours.”
The pair were handed the sentences at Minshull Street Crown Court
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PA
Addressing her abusers directly, she declared: “You are nothing but paedophiles, rapists, scum of the earth, lowest of the low.”
Hussain, of Manchester Road, was convicted of seven counts of rape and seven counts of indecent assault.
Ali, of Ainsworth Road, was found guilty of five rape charges, five indecent assaults and one attempted indecent assault.
Rachel Shenton, representing Hussain, told the court her client had “two sides to him” and had been “out of trouble for 20 years”.
Clare Ashcroft, defending Ali, requested the shortest possible custodial term.
Both defendants will serve two-thirds of their sentences before becoming eligible for release and will remain on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Chief Inspector Ian Partington of Greater Manchester Police described the pair as “sexual predators who deliberately targeted vulnerable young girls”.