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.
*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.
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33. Khurram Javed: Jailed for two years in May 2018
A man found guilty of sexual assault against a girl in 2014 as part of the National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood has been jailed. Khurram Javed, then of Faraday Court, Rotherham was on trial for three counts of sexual assault and one count of rape against two girls – one who was 13 at the time – between 2008 and 2014. He was found not guilty of two counts of sexual assault and one count of rape, following a seven day trial at Sheffield Crown Court. On May 31, 2018, Javed, then 34, was sentenced to two years imprisonment. During sentencing the judge, HHJ Watson QC, described how Javed had groomed his victim and shown a significant degree of planning, identifying the victim who was in a vulnerable position at a vulnerable time of her life. He was 31 years old and the victim was 16 and it was "plain and obvious she was younger than Javed". | NCA
34. Tony Chapman: Jailed for 25 years in May 2018
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”. | Submit
35. Asghar Bostan: Taxi driver rapist jailed for nine years
53-year-old Asghar Boston was found guilty of raping a teenage girl between 2000 and 2002, following a Sheffield Crown Court trial in February 2018. Bostan, formerly of East Bawtry Road, Rotherham was charged in May 2017 as part of Operation Stovewood - the NCA’s investigation into non-familial child sexual exploitation and abuse between 1997 and 2013. The victim – who was aged under 16 at the time of the abuse - came forward to South Yorkshire Police in 2014 to report the abuse and the case was referred to the NCA’s Operation Stovewood team. She told officers she was given drugs and alcohol, and coerced into staying at a flat in Rotherham, where Bostan raped her on two occasions. He was sentenced to nine years in prison following a five-day trial at Sheffield Crown Court. | Submit
36. Sajid Ali: Jailed for seven-and-a-half years in November 2017
In November 2017, Sajid Ali 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 Ali, then aged 38, for seven-and-a-half years after jurors found him guilty of seven counts of indecent assault. He was was convicted alongside Riaz Makhmood, then aged 39, who, during the same hearing, was sentenced to six years, nine months' custody, while a third defendant Zaheer Iqbal, then aged 40, was also sentenced to seven-and-a-half-years behind bars. 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." | Submit