Girl given cannabis and sexually abused in factory, jury told

The alleged victim, who was aged between 13 and 15 at the time, said in a police interview last year that Mohammed Imran Akhtar had taken her to the abandoned factory in Tinsley or Eastwood where she was made to perform sexual acts on him.

Akhtar (37), of Godstone Road, Rotherham, is on trial at Sheffield Crown Court alongside Nabeel Kurshid, Iqlak Yousaf, Tanweer Ali, Ajmal Rafiq, Salah El-Hakam, Asif Ali and another defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons. The men are charged with 28 offences against five girls between 1998 and 2005.

The trial is part of Operation Stovewood — the National Crime Agency’s investigation into non-familial child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

The woman, now aged 33, said she was sexually abused by Akhtar in the late 1990s. In her police interview shown to the jury on Wednesday, she said Akhtar had driven her, her sister and another girl to a two-bedroomed house in a silver Volkswagen.

“I remember a mattress bed on the floor of his bedroom and having sex with Imran on that bed,” she said.

The woman said she recalled being taken to an abandoned factory in Tinsley or Eastwood where she performed sexual acts on Akhtar.

“I remember him giving me some weed and not feeling well,” she said.

The girl told police in a previous interview, recorded in 2015, that Akhtar had never asked her how old she was.

Ms Michelle Colborne, prosecuting, told the court on Tuesday that the girl and her sister were “enthralled by older Asian males – men who had cars and seemed exciting to them”.

All of the men deny the charges. The trial continues.