Jury in Arshid Hussain sexual assault trial retires to consider verdict

Arshid Hussain (42) denies forcing the woman, now 28, to perform oral sex on him in his car in 2003 when he was 27.

Giving evidence on Friday, the woman said she had been sexually assaulted by Hussain weeks after his younger brother, Sageer Hussain, who was then 17, had raped her.

The woman said after Sageer Hussain (32) had raped her it “became a bit of a free-for-all” and she had been sexually exploited by numerous men.

Sageer, his brother Basharat, cousin Asif Ali, and six friends were jailed last year for multiple sexual offences against the woman.

Cross-examining the woman last Friday (17), Mr Stephen Uttley said she was “mistaken, not lying, about saying Hussain was one of the people who made her perform oral sex”.

She replied: “No, I don’t agree with that at all.”

The woman said the sexual assault had happened on one occasion in Hussain’s car in around March 2003, when he had been parked near the Boots loading bay in Rotherham town centre .

The woman corrected Mr Uttley after he said her “sexual activity” with Sageer Hussain had taken place before she was allegedly forced to perform oral sex on Arshid Hussain.

She told him: “It wasn’t sexual activity, I was raped.”

The woman added: “Once that initial rape took place, it was a bit of a free-for-all from then.”

The complainant first told police in 2003 about her abuse at the hands of Sageer Hussain, but withdrew the allegations after her family was threatened.

They ended up fleeing the country and moving abroad for around a year.

In 2013, she spoke to police again about the abuse and named more men, including Arshid Hussain.

The woman said she had not mentioned anyone else apart from Sageer Hussain in 2003 because she had been scared of him and his associates.

She added: “I was really fearful of what was happening, I knew to fear them, I had seen the consequences of what happened if you go against what they said, what they did.

“I only disclosed so much to see if I could trust the police and to see if they would keep me safe and it turned out that didn’t happen, so I didn’t get the opportunity to disclose further.”

Hussain has been absent from the trial for “health reasons”.

The jury retired this afternoon (Monday) to consider their verdict.