Man who 'married' care home girl, 15, jailed for sex abuse

Raja Zulqurnean's prison sentence was increased to 23 years by judge at the Court of Appeal

A man who "married" a 15-year-old girl in an Islamic wedding ceremony is among eight men to have been found guilty of sexual offences against her.

The victim was groomed and sexually abused by men from the age of 13 and that continued when she was in a Bradford children's home, a trial heard.

A Bradford Crown Court jury was told the "wedding" in the early 2000s to Raja Zulqurnean, was attended by the victim's key social worker despite care home staff fearing that she was being exploited.

Zulqurnean, now 43, was found guilty of rape and indecent assault and jailed in May for a minimum of 18 years but that was increased to 23 years by appeal court judges.

The BBC is able to report the convictions of the eight British Pakistani men for the first time after reporting restrictions were amended.

Bradford Crown Court heard Zulqurnean forced the victim to wear Islamic dress and eat a halal diet and stopped her seeing family because they were "non-believers."

His trial was told he sometimes locked the victim in a cellar at a property in Bradford, sexually abused her and deprived her of food, education and medical care.

'Institutional scandal'

The victim told the BBC: "This was far more than a grooming case. This was an institutional scandal and no one cared for my wellbeing.

"I was married to an abuser. How could a child marry? Social services enabled it," she said.

The BBC understands the victim's former key social worker Anwar Meah was questioned by police on suspicion of malfeasance in public office, but no further action was taken and he provided no further comment to the BBC.

The woman contacted the BBC in 2019 about her experiences of being sexually exploited after seeing one of her other abusers, Basharat Khaliq, in a BBC Look North news report about child sexual exploitation.

Khaliq, 44, who was already in prison for sexual offences at the time of the report, was found guilty at Bradford Crown Court in June this year of her rape and indecent assault and is awaiting sentence.

In care documents seen by the BBC social workers at the children's home recorded that the victim "was going out with Asian men late at night and not reporting to staff about where she had been".

The woman told the BBC: "I was on a care order but I wasn't protected at all, and the systems that were meant to protect me enabled my abuse."

Police records showed the victim went missing 101 times between 2002 and 2004.

A social worker told the court that men in up to 10 cars a night were seen arriving at the children's home and vehicle registration plates were passed to police weekly.

A barred opaque window at one of the locations where the victim was abused

The woman, who has a lifelong right to anonymity, said the impact of giving evidence had been devastating.

"When I came forward, no-one told me how it was going to diminish my mental health, how it would affect relationships with my family, how it would affect the thoughts in my brain," she said.

"I feel like I've experienced more trauma than I did as a child because I've lived it over and over again in my 30s and I never got a break.

"It was just emotional unwellness."

'Victims not heard'

David Greenwood, the victim's solicitor, criticised the actions of social workers and police back in the early 2000s, when the abuse was being carried out.

"Staff in that children's home knew these serious crimes were being committed, not just to this girl but to others at the same time as well," he said.

"It should have been stopped. The police should have been in there immediately and the girls should have been probably dispersed away from that place."

The victim said other girls at the children's home had also complained about sexual exploitation.

"Loads of girls were reporting stuff back then, I'm not the only one," she said.

"The women that have got justice over the last 10 or 15 years are just a snippet of the girls who were abused in Bradford and Keighley.

"There are so many victims who have not been heard."

Eight men have been convicted at Bradford Crown Court of sexual offences in connection with the case

A West Yorkshire Police spokesperson said that since the early 2010s, the force had "significantly invested in and improved" its safeguarding capability and taken a "proactive and meticulous approach to exploring previous incidents".

The spokesperson said that many investigations were still under way, adding: "The work undertaken over the past decade has resulted in hundreds of perpetrators now serving lengthy prison sentences."

Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, said there had been "serious failings in the way the council and other agencies in our district acted at that time and we've apologised for that".

"They did not protect the victim as they should have," she added.

Hinchcliffe said the victim's experiences were "looked at in depth" during an earlier review into child sex abuse in the district.

She said the findings were fed into the nationwide Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and recommendations had been acted on locally so that agencies could "better protect children in the here and now".

In total, eight men have been convicted at Bradford Crown Court in connection with the victim's sexual abuse:

• Raja Zulqurnean 43, of Bradford, was found guilty of 10 rapes and nine indecent assaults and was sentenced to 23 years in jail

• Basharat Khaliq, 45, of Bradford, was found guilty of three rapes and four counts of indecent assault and awaits sentencing

• Mohammed Naheem, 39, of Bradford, was found guilty of three counts of indecent assault and awaits sentencing

• Safraz Ahmed Latif, 40, of Bradford, was found guilty of four indecent assaults and awaits sentencing

• Wajid Hussain, 42, of Bradford, was found guilty of indecent assault and awaits sentencing

• Nadeem Ali, 39, of Bradford, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault and awaits sentencing

• Mohammed Imran Akram, 43, of Bradford, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault and awaits sentencing

• Mohammed Shezhad Hussain, 39, of Keighley, was found guilty of one rape and two counts of indecent assault and awaits sentencing

In July, the prime minister announced there would be a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs in England and Wales.

Sir Keir Starmer said he had accepted the recommendations of an audit by Baroness Louise Casey into the data and evidence on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse.

The inquiry is expected to include new local investigations which will have the power to compel evidence to be given and witnesses to appear.

• If you have been affected by child sexual abuse and sexual abuse or violence, details of help and support in the UK are available at the BBC Action Line.

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