January 2020 Rochdale child sex offender who fled to Pakistan during trial extradited A child sex offender who sexually exploited and abused an underage girl in Rochdale has been returned to the UK to serve a 19-year jail sentence after fleeing to Pakistan halfway through his trial. Choudhry Ikhalaq Hussain, 42, was extradited on Tuesday after being arrested in January last year in the province of Punjab, Greater Manchester police (GMP) said. He was one of 10 men sentenced in 2016 for committing sexual offences against a schoolgirl in Rochdale, but he fled the UK while on bail. Hussain was given permission to leave his trial by the judge after claiming he wanted to go to a relative’s funeral in the UK but instead left for Pakistan. He was sentenced in his absence to 19 years imprisonment in April 2016 after being found guilty of three counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of rape and one count of conspiracy to rape. Hussain was caught as part of Operation Doublet, a large scale police inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation between 2003 and 2013, predominantly in the Rochdale area of Greater Manchester. The case revolved around a girl who walked into a police station shortly after the widely covered 2012 convictions of nine Asian defendants for grooming white girls for sex in the town. The extremely vulnerable young woman told officers she had been raped by 10 men, and had been repeatedly sexually groomed by a large number of men from the age of 14. January 2019 On the run child rapist caught A convicted child-sex offender, who was part of a gang that exploited and raped teenage girls in Rochdale who went on the run to avoid a 19-year jail sentence, has been arrested in Pakistan where he fled during his trial, the British High Commission in Islamabad said on Thursday. Choudhry Ikhalaq Hussain, 41, was part of a group of men of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afghan origin who were jailed for abusing dozens of girls following an investigation centred on the town of Rochdale near Manchester. The men groomed the girls with gifts and plied them with alcohol and drugs before forcing them to have sex with others. Hussain, of Mayfield Terrace, was given permission to attend a family funeral in the UK when he went on the run. His arrest follows a joint operation by police in the UK and Pakistan. Most of the offences took place between 2004 and 2008 and involved victims who were aged 13 to 23. A teenage girl, raped by all 10 men, contacted police after the 2012 convictions of nine Asian defendants for grooming white girls in the town. She said “hundreds” of older men would ring her up wanting sex and she had been groomed from the age of 14. Hussain escaped during the trial but was found guilty in 2016 in his absence of a series of serious offences including rape and sexual activity with a child. “The arrest of this individual, who has been convicted of sexual offences by a British court, is a significant achievement and another excellent example of UK-Pakistan cooperation in tackling international criminality and impunity,” Thomas Drew, the British High Commissioner to Pakistan said. “It sends a clear message that Pakistan is not a safe haven for international criminals.” Pakistani courts will now decide whether to extradite Hussain back to Britain, the Commission said.