Daily Mail
December 7, 2013
A senior detective has warned parents to monitor the social networks their children use after three men were convicted of grooming girls as young as 13 and exploiting them for sex.
Six girls in total were exploited by taxi driver Shakil Munir, 32, and Sakib Ahmed, 19, after they were groomed over Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger.
Another man, Ateeq Latif, 17, was found guilty of helping the commission of a child sex offence.
One of the young girls’ mothers has called on other children to be careful when using social networks, saying that her daughter had 2,200 friends on Facebook, and described the site as a ‘free for all’.
Teesside Crown Court heard how taxi driver Munir had sent the 14-year-old girl hundreds of messages on Facebook, many of them explicit, one night after befriending her.
He had picked up the child in his car, while she was in her pyjamas and slippers, and had sex with her in a lay-by off the A19.
That same week, he took a 13-year-old to a ‘chill-pad’ flat for sex.
Accomplice: Ateeq Latif, 17, was found guilty of helping the commission of a child sex offence after accompanying Ahmed on drives and leading off other girls so his friend would be alone with a young victim.
Munir, who was thought to have many young ‘friends’ on Facebook was convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child and one of abduction – relating to driving off with the 14-year-old.
On the eve of the group’s trial, Ahmed admitted sexual activity with a child, charges relating to five under-age victims.
He used BlackBerry Messenger 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.
He would take girls out for a drive before pressurising them into giving him oral sex or full intercourse.
Ahmed’s friend Latif, 17, was convicted by the jury today of two counts of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.