Rotherham trial: Officers '˜who witnessed girl's abuse won't testify against Arshid Hussain'

DC Lee Robinson told the woman that officers involved in her case when she was a teenager would not wish to make statements that would get them ‘in the s***’ for not acting at the time.

A jury at Sheffield Crown Court was read a transcript of a conversation between two police officers and one of defendant Arshid Hussain’s alleged victims, who had secretly recorded the conversation on a mobile phone.

The woman, known as Girl J and now 30 years old, is one of 12 complainants in a trial of five men and two women accused of having roles in a Rotherham child grooming ring.

In the conversation, from March 2013, the woman met with DC Lee Robinson and PC Diane Garner to discuss the possibility of her making a statement against Arshid Hussain.

The woman said that there should be records available of one occasion when she was 14 and police had found Hussain having sex with her.

She said on that day she was arrested on suspicion of stealing jewellery from her family and put into foster care.

The woman asked whether police officers involved with her case at the time would have to make statements if she provided their names.

She said the names she could provide included officers who used to ring Hussain ‘and tell him that police were looking for me and stuff’.

DC Robinson said: “I can’t guarantee that as much as you’d like.

“If they walked in there and they saw you were having sex on the floor and they know you’re only 14 and they’ve seen this Asian male, if they put that in a statement, they know full well they’re going to get in the s*** because why didn’t they do something about that?”

The woman said she thought some officers may not wish to give evidence.

“They know I know stuff about them what they could get sacked for,” she said.

DC Robinson said: “It may be that if we went to speak to that person, they might turn around and say, ‘I didn’t see anything like that.’

“I can’t force them to write something if they say, ‘I never saw that’.

He added: “Opinions have changed now. Now we identify that as child abuse. Before they’d see it as sort of a lovesick teenager who keeps going back to this fella.”

The trial continues.