Two members of a depraved child grooming gang who preyed on an Oxford schoolgirl hope to have their sentences overturned.
Naim Khan, 43, and Mohammed Nazir, 46, will go to the Court of Appeal next week asking the justices for leave to appeal their sentences for rape, indecent assault and supplying a class B drug.
Ringleader Khan got 24 years behind bars, while Nazir received 20 years’ imprisonment.
During the trial at Oxford Crown Court – the third in a series of linked cases involving multiple victims and abusers – prosecutors said the men ‘pimped’ the schoolgirl out to other men between 1999 and 2001, subjecting her to repeated rapes and treating her as a ‘sexual commodity’.
Alan Gardner, prosecuting, said: “Naim Khan, the prosecution say, began to pimp her out to other Asian males, made her sexually available to other men in return for payment.”
In a victim personal statement read out at court, the victim said the repeated rapes and assaults had ‘ruined any chance I had at a normal life’ and led to a crippling descent into drug misuse.
Sentencing the men in February 2020, Judge Peter Ross said: “By the use of cannabis, alcohol, she and [another victim] were sucked into the vortex that was this grooming gang.
“This group of young men, preyed upon vulnerable, young teenage girls.
“[They were] given a sense of belonging, a sense of esteem and sense of adulthood.
“Drugs, alcohol, flattery, pretence of romance, were all used to generate a sense of esteem and sense of adulthood.
“They came to feel that the sexual abuse perpetrated on them was normal.”
Naim Khan, of Herschel Crescent and Mohammed Nazir, of Wood Farm Road, were convicted by jurors of rape, indecent assault and supplying a class B drug.
The jury took 28 hours and 25 minutes to return verdicts to 35 of the counts. No decision could be reached on four other counts.
At the conclusion of the trial, former Det Chief Insp Mark Glover, who had been the senior officer on the investigations into the Oxford grooming gangs, praised the bravery of the victims.
“They have had to live with the actions of these predatory offenders for the majority of their lives and they have all been impacted in different ways,” he said.
“They will never be able to forget what happened to them all those years ago, however I hope they all know what a crucial part they have played in bringing to justice the men who subjected them to such vile abuse for such a long time.”
Khan and Nazir’s case will be heard by the Court of Appeal on October 7.
Keep up to date with all the latest news on our website, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
For news updates straight to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here.
Have you got a story for us? Contact our newsdesk on [email protected] or 01865 425 445.
