South Yorkshire child abuser Arshid Hussain sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing 13-year-old girl

It took jurors less than an hour to find Arshid Hussain guilty of indecently assaulting a 13-year-old girl when he was 27

During a hearing at Sheffield Crown Court this morning, Judge Sarah Wright sentenced Hussain, 42, to seven years in prison, to run concurrently with the 35-year sentence he is currently serving.

It took jurors at Sheffield Crown Court 38 minutes to convict Hussain of the offence yesterday, which took place in Rotherham between January and March 2003, when he was aged 27.

Hussain appeared via video link this morning, but had not been present throughout the trial due to 'health problems'. He claims to be paraplegic after being shot in 2005.

Opening the case last week, prosecutor, Peter Hampton, told the court how the girl, then aged 13, was ‘goaded’ into performing oral sex on Arshid in his red Subaru vehicle near a loading bay close to an alleyway next to Boots in Rotherham town centre.

He said the girl and her friends met Arshid, formerly of of High Street, East Cowick, Goole, through his cousin Sageer Hussain, and believed they were her friends.

Mr Hampton said: “They would meet these lads in Rotherham Town Centre. The girls trusted these friends.”

He explained how Sageer ‘took the lead’ in grooming the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and introduced her to older men, including Arshid and Arshid’s brother, Basharat Hussain.

“Sagheer Hussain established a pattern of abuse whereby he encouraged his friends and family to have sex with her as well as raping her himself.

"They threatened not to remain friends with her if she refused. "

Too naive to know better, she regarded their friendship as important to her.

"They also told her, a 13-year-old, she owed them something as they had given her cigarettes, alcohol and cannabis,” continued Mr Hampton.

In a separate incident, the girl was also pressured into performing oral sex on Basharat in the same location, while she was in his sky blue Subaru car, the court was told.

Mr Hampton told jurors how Sageer, Basharat and their cousin Asif Ali, were convicted with five other men of the sexual exploitation of the girl, following a trial last year.

Arshid’s victim, who is now 28-years-old, first went to the police about Sageer’s offending only in 2003, but was ‘intimidated’ into dropping the case.

She went back to the police in 2013 when she realised the force were investigating historic child sexual exploitation in the Rotherham area. She also reported Arshid’s offending at this time. In February last year, Arshid was jailed for 35-years after a jury found him guilty of 23 offences against nine victims after denying all charges against him.