Market trader groomer ‘Boss Man’ felt untouchable, court told

A market stallholder who groomed and raped two schoolgirls in Rochdale felt he was “almost untouchable”, a court has heard.

Social services and police apologised for their past failings surrounding the victims, who were abused in the town between 2001 and 2006, following the convictions of Mohammed Zahid, 65, and six other Asian men earlier this year for various sexual offences.

Father-of-three Zahid – known as Boss Man – gave free underwear from his lingerie stall at Rochdale Indoor Market to both teenagers, along with money, alcohol and food, in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends.

One of his victims, Girl B, was living in a local children’s home when she was targeted by Zahid.

Prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court: “His offending centred around his stall which allowed him to meet many girls who he groomed and later introduced to others.

“(Girl B) was in the care system for most of her young life and Mohammed Zahid knew about that.

“It got to a stage where he was confident that nothing would be done about it and he would ring the care home and would also go there to pick her up and drop her off.

“Such was the brazen way he did this that by the end of the abuse he felt almost untouchable.

“It’s not as if she had no-one to turn to. She turned to the care home. She turned to social services.

“She felt able to tell them at some stages, or other people did, and nothing was done. People knew, authorities knew. And nothing was done.”

Jurors at the trial were told that Girl B was labelled as a “prostitute” by Rochdale social services from the age of 10.

On Tuesday, it also emerged that two 16-year-old girls made complaints in writing to the market stall manager that Zahid gave them free and discounted items, and made inappropriate sexual remarks.

Zahid asked one girl for her phone number and “looked her up and down”, while the other reported that he “behaved in a creepy way”.

In 2016, Zahid was jailed for five years in an earlier grooming gang case after he engaged in sexual activity in 2005 and 2006 with a 14-year-old girl whom he met when she visited his stall to buy tights for school.

He was one of many men who called her phone number “out of the blue” and went on to groom the “extremely vulnerable” teenager.

Zahid, who came to the UK from his native Pakistan in 1978, continues to deny his offending, said his barrister Lisa Wilding KC.

She said his 2016 conviction led to the breakdown of his marriage and family life.

Addressing Judge Jonathan Seely, she said: “He is someone who potentially faces spending the rest of his life in prison.

“Clearly you must pass a sentence that is just, proportionate and reflects the offending, but I would ask you to pass a sentence that perhaps allows him a glimmer of hope that at some stage he may be released.”

In June, Zahid, of Station Road, Crumpsall, was convicted of raping Girl A and Girl B, who did not know each other, on multiple occasions.

Jurors also found him guilty of offences of indecency with a child and procuring a child to have sex.

He will be sentenced on Wednesday along with his co-defendants.

Fellow market traders Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, of Corona Avenue, Oldham, and Kasir Bashir, 50, of Napier Street East, Oldham – also born in Pakistan – were convicted of multiple counts of rape and indecency with a child, in relation to Girl B.

Taxi drivers Mohammed Shahzad, 44, of Beswicke Royds Street, Rochdale; Naheem Akram, 49, of Manley Road, Rochdale; and Nisar Hussain, 41, of New Field Close, Rochdale, were convicted of multiple counts of rape against Girl A.

Roheez Khan, 39, of Athole Street, Rochdale, was found guilty of a single count of rape against Girl A.

Bashir will be sentenced in his absence after he fled the UK while on bail before the trial started.