Leader of Rotherham child abuse gang sentenced to 12 years in prison for raping another girl

Warning: This story contains descriptions that some readers may find disturbing.

A gang leader convicted of sexually exploiting children in Rotherham has been found guilty of another rape after a new victim came forward.

Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, 42, who was already serving a 23-year prison sentence for child abuse, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Friday.

Akhtar was originally charged as part of Operation Stovewood, a series of investigations into a child sexual exploitation ring identified in the South Yorkshire town.

He was sentenced to prison in 2018 for sexually abusing three vulnerable victims between 1998 and 2005.

On Friday he was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court of sexually abusing another victim between 2001 and 2003.

The victim, who was 13 to 14 years old at the time, came forward after reading about Akhtar’s arrest in 2018.

The court heard that at the time of the abuse, the victim was a “very vulnerable girl living in difficult circumstances”.

Judge Sarah Wright said Akhtar targeted his victim in Rotherham town centre by calling her to his car and began manipulating her by giving her alcohol and drugs.

Akhtar engaged in sexual acts with the girl four or five times a week for about a year in his car and an apparently empty house in Rotherham.

On one occasion, the court said, Akhtar and another man intimidated the girl and another “obviously desperate and unwilling” victim and forced them to perform sexual acts.

The court also heard that the victim told police during questioning that she “feels sick when she sees anyone on the street who remotely resembles the defendant”.

The girl began to disappear and stay away from home.

Michael Collins, mitigating the sentence, said Akhtar committed the offences before he married and had a child. He added that Akhtar had mental health problems that “make incarceration difficult”.

In October, he pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and two counts of sexual assault, both of which related to multiple incidents over a two-year period.

In sentencing Akhtar, Judge Wright praised the victim for her courage in coming forward with her testimony and told the defendant: “Her childhood and adolescence are irreversible, the impact of your crime on her cannot be overestimated.”

The court stated that the prison sentence would be served parallel to his existing prison sentence.