The 17 child abusers pictured here have been jailed for a combined total of 236 years, after being convicted as part of probe into historic abuse in Rotherham.
As a child rapist already serving time admitted this week to committing more sex offences, here we share the details of every man convicted as part of Operation Stovewood so far.
Operation Stovewood was launched in the wake of the Alexis Jay report, which was published in 2014 and described how at least 1,400 children in Rotherham had been subjected to grooming and abuse by gangs of men between 1997 and 2013. It also outlined how police and social workers had failed to step in.
It is a National Crime Agency operation, and is the single largest law enforcement investigation into non-familial child sexual abuse in the UK.
Over 200 arrests have been made since the operation was launched.
42-year-old Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar has spent the last five years behind bars, after receiving a 23-year sentence in 2018 when a jury at Sheffield Crown Court found him guilty of a string of sex offences including rape; indecent assault; procuring a girl under 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse with another; aiding and abetting rape and sexual assault.
Akhtar is now facing more jail time after pleading guilty to two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault, during a Sheffield Crown Court hearing held on Tuesday, October 17, 2023.
The offences took place between 2001 and 2003, and involved a victim who was as young as 13-years-old. Akhtar is set to be sentenced at the same court on December 18. His guilty pleas mark the latest Operation Stovewood conviction, and here we look back at all of the 17 prison terms passed down so far.
Sentences of four years or more are never spent, and in the case of Operation Stovewood, the shortest sentence passed out is four years, while the largest sentence is 25 years.
*If you are concerned about a child and believe they are being exploited, please report it to South Yorkshire Police so they can help.
You can get in touch with them by calling 101, or going online and using the force's chat function or online portal at: https://smartcontact.southyorkshire.police.uk/
Call 999 if they are in immediate danger.
It is a National Crime Agency operation, and is the single largest law enforcement investigation into non-familial child sexual abuse in the UK.
5. Zaheer Iqbal: Seven-and-a-half years behind bars for child abuser
In November 2017, Zaheer Iqbal was convicted of multiple child sex offences as part of the first Operation Stovewood trial which was held at Sheffield Crown Court. Judge David Dixon jailed Iqbal, then aged 40, for seven-and-a-half years after jurors found him guilty of five counts of indecent assault. He was was convicted and jailed alongside Sajid Ali, then aged 38, who also received a seven-and-a-half year sentence and Riaz Makhmood, then aged 39, who was jailed for six years, nine months Between them, the three defendants were found unanimously guilty of 15 counts of indecent assault. The court was told how all three men groomed a 'vulnerable' girl, aged between 12 and 13-years-old, before sexually abusing her in the Masbrough area of Rotherham for a period of a year during the mid-1990s. Ali, Makhmood and Iqbal would ply the girl with cigarettes and alcohol so she felt she owed them something, and threatened to tell her mother she was a 'slag' if she did not do what they wanted Judge Dixon told them: "Each of you in your own way perpetuated and facilitated the abuse of a vulnerable, young girl," adding: "Like many, she simply wanted to be liked and you preyed on that." He continued: "The memories haunt her."
6. Tony Chapman: 25 years' prison for 'dangerous' and 'callous' sex offender
A 48-year man from Rotherham convicted of 17 child sexual abuse offences was sentenced to 25 years in prison in May 2018. Tony Chapman, from Lindley Street in Eastwood, admitted 12 charges of indecently assaulting a girl under the age of 16 between February 1998 and January 1999 when he appeared Sheffield Crown Court on the 17 April, 2018. He was found guilty of five offences against two separate girls including rape, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and threatening to kill following a nine-day trial at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday. The offences took place between October 2013 and May 2015, when the girls were under the age of 16. Sentencing him, Judge David Dixon told Chapman was a “very dangerous and callous man who thought he was invincible”, showing “no remorse” for his actions. Judge Dixon also referred to the complainants saying ”these brave women will be listened to and looked after”.
7. Darren Hyett: Taxi driver jailed for sexually abusing girl
In October 2018, 60-year-old Darren Hyett was sentenced to nine years in prison for sexual activity with a child. Hyett, formerly of Broom Chase, Rotherham was found guilty of three counts of sexual activity with a child following a 10 day trial at Sheffield Crown Court. Hyett was acquitted of four counts of rape, one count of perverting the course of justice and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent. The jury could not reach a verdict on a further count of rape. The offences against a girl who was aged 15 when the abuse first started, took place between 2004 and 2007. The investigation proved Darren Hyett, who was aged 41 at the time, targeted and groomed the 15-year-old girl. He bought her gifts, gave her alcohol and cigarettes and regularly took her out in his taxi after collecting her from a children’s home.
8. Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar: Grooming gang ringleader jailed for 23 years in October 2018
In October 2018, Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar became one of six men convicted of multiple child offences, relating to the grooming and sexual exploitation of young girls in Rotherham and the surrounding areas. Following his conviction, South Yorkshire Police said Akhtar was the 'ringleader' of the grooming gang. The 42-year-old received a 23-year sentence in 2018, after a jury at Sheffield Crown Court found him guilty of a string of sex offences including rape; indecent assault; procuring a girl under 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse with another; aiding and abetting rape and sexual assault. He is now facing more jail time after pleading guilty to two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault during a Sheffield Crown Court hearing held on October 17, 2023. Akhtar, formerly of Godstone Rd, Rotherham, was convicted alongside Nabeel Kurshid, Iqlaq Yousaf and Tanweer Ali, all friends from Rotherham, were found guilty alongside Salah Ahmed El-Hakam, Asif Ali. During the course of the 2018 trial, the court heard that the men befriended the girls, with some leading them to believe they were their boyfriends, before passing them around to be sexually abused by multiple offenders. The men would ply the girls with drugs and alcohol and threatened them with violence or being transported and abandoned in an unfamiliar location if they didn’t comply with the sexual demands. In victim impact statements, the girls told that the abuse was mainly carried out at night in a variety of secluded or derelict locations, including empty houses where there was no electricity. They were often sexually abused on mattresses on the floor and locked in rooms so that they couldn’t escape. One of the girls also recalled being driven to a remote spot by two of the men where one of them began to “grope” her. She explained that when she became distressed he said, “it’s better if you just get it over and done with and then you can go back home”.