February 2014 Three Middlesbrough men jailed for grooming underage girls for sex FIVE girls groomed on the streets of a North-East town are still being “tortured” by supporters of the men who abused them, their families said tonight. The mother of one of the teenage victims spoke out after two men and a 17-year-old youth were jailed for a total of 19 years for sexually exploiting the girls in Middlesbrough. Passing sentence Judge John Walford told Shakil Munir, 32, 19-year-old Sakib Ahmed and Ateeq Latif, 17, that they had regarded the girls – all aged between 13 and 15 – as objects for their own sexual pleasure. He added: “In reality they were children who lacked the maturity of experience to cope with your manipulative ways.” The court heard that the girls had been taunted and insulted by friends and family of the defendants since coming forward, including being bombarded by obscene messages, called sluts and accused of being racist. Judge Walford described the girls’ treatment as “appalling”, adding that it revealed a “profoundly worrying attitude about the offending”. Speaking outside court after the sentencing, the mother of one of the victims said: “The girls are still being tortured by these people – they are painting them as sluts when they are the victims.” Police maintained a high presence inside and outside Teesside Crown Court yesterday as about 20 English Defence League activists exchanged insults with supporters of the defendants. December 2013 Sexual exploitation case: Trio face jail Two men and a 17 year old are facing jail for the sexual grooming of underage girls in Middlesbrough. 6 victims, aged 13 to 15, told how 32-year-old Shakil Munir (pictured above) and Sakib Ahmed (pictured below) used threats and intimidation to cajole them into repeated sexual acts. 17 year old Ateeq Latif was today (December 5) found guilty of two counts of arranging commission of a child sex offence. Taxi driver Shakil Munir, 32, picked up one Middlesbrough 14-year-old in his car and had sex with her in a lay-by. In the same week he took a 13-year-old to a “chill-pad” for sex, Teesside Crown Court heard. And now details of two of the perverts – Sakib Ahmed, 19, and his friend Ateeq Latif, 17 – can be reported for the first time. Orders banning the media from identifying the pair were lifted at the end of a long-running trial today (Thursday, December 5). On the eve of the trial, Ahmed, 19, admitted sexual activity with a child – charges relating to five under-age victims. He would take girls out for a drive and then pressure them into giving him oral sex or full intercourse. His friend, 17-year-old Latif, was convicted by the jury today of two counts of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence. He helped Ahmed by going along with him on drives, then taking one girl away for a walk to leave his friend alone in the car with a young victim. A jury at Teesside Crown Court found that a total of six girls were victims of child sexual exploitation. The abuse came to light after one of the girls confided in her mother about the abuse she’d suffered. That mother gave evidence during the 7 week trial at Teesside Crown court. The court heard that Munir sent one of his victims hundreds of messages on Facebook after he befriended her one night. Many of the messages they exchanged were explicit. His other victim, who is now in care, was just 13 when he took her to a flat for sex. He was convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child and one of abduction – relating to driving off with the 14-year-old. Detectives believed he had many young “friends” on Facebook. Ahmed used BlackBerry messaging to contact his victims, manipulating the girls into thinking he liked them, then pressuring them for sex. He met one girl at an under-18s disco at a nightclub, and when she told him she was only 14, he replied: “Pretend you’re 16.” He grabbed her and kissed her roughly in the toilets. Later, when her mother was driving her home, he began messaging her BlackBerry to set up another meeting. He got her on a date and parked up near a field and pressured her into having sex. Before the case opened, Judge John Walford urged the jury not to draw comparisons with similar grooming cases elsewhere in the country. “For reasons which I hope are obvious, not least because you must decide the case on the evidence and only the evidence, it’s important you disregard any views which you may have heard or found about what happened in other towns and cities involving different groups of people on different occasions in the past,” he said. Munir, of Tollesby Road, Latif, of Abingdon Road, and Ahmed, of Cambridge Road, all Middlesbrough, will be sentenced at a later date.