Child sex abuse trial: Qurban Ali denies he is "Blind Ash"

Qurban Ali (53), of Clough Road, is charged with four offences against one girl between 1993-1995, including conspiracy to rape, indecent assault and procuring a woman to become a common prostitute.

The alleged victim, aged 36, claimed Ali was Karen MacGregor’s boyfriend, both the defendants deny ever being in a relationship, he gave her heroin at her home and brought his nephew, co-accused Arshid Hussain, to MacGregor’s address.

The woman also claimed she was forced to have sex with Blind Ash, who the prosecution say is Ali, forced to perform oral sex on him in a taxi and that he took her to a Sheffield flat and forced her to have sex with another man there.

It is agreed by counsel that Ali, who has had a degenerative eye disease since he was a child and was registered as sight impaired blind in 1970, has never applied for a UK driving licence.

Giving evidence Ali said he was not close to his nephews Basharat, Bannaras, and Arshid Hussain and never visited their homes in the 90s or went in cars with them.

He told the court he had never met or heard of the complainant and had never been to MacGregor’s home.

He said: “I didn’t fetch no heroin, never touched it, never seen it, never want to do so.”

Defending, Ms Laura Brickman, said the complainant claimed she performed oral sex on him in a taxi when she was in her early teens.

Ali responded: “I have never owned a taxi or driven a taxi, I do not drive.”

Ms Brickman said the alleged victim had made a positive identification of Ali in an ID parade as a man that sexually abused her at co-accused Karen MacGregor’s home on Quarry Street.

Ali said the woman may have recognised him from working at Millennium Taxis, which was also situated near the nightclub Zone.

Cross-examining, prosecutor Ms Michelle Colborne, said: “You say you are not responsible for the offences as described by the complainant.

“What you are saying is not that it didn’t happen, but that it was not you.”

Ali replied: “Yes”.

Ms Colborne said: “That you are not the Blind Ash who along with Mad Ash and Karen MacGregor abused this woman.

“You were blind in the 90s, you are the uncle of Arshid Hussain also known as Mad Ash, you knew Karen MacGregor in the 90s.”

He replied: “That’s right”

She continued: “You were working at a taxi firm in the 90s and everybody called you Blind Ash?”

He answered: “Not to my knowledge, maybe behind my back.”

Ms Colborne said: “There’s no other Blind Ash, you are that man.”

He answered: “I am not that man.”

Ali denies all charges and the trial continues.