During a sentencing hearing held on Wednesday (March 5, 2025), Romauld Stefan Houphouet, aged 37, an Ivoirian national of Spital Lane, Sheffield, and Absolom Sigiyo, 42, a Zimbabwean national, of Longfellow Drive, Rotherham, were jailed for 20 years and 18 years, six months respectively.
Jurors found them guilty of a catalogue of sex offences committed against two 15-year-old girls, who were repeatedly abused by Houphouet and Sigiyo.
A third man, Jacek Brzozowski, aged 35, of Middle Avenue, Rawmarsh, Rotherham, pleaded guilty to an offence of one count of penetrative sexual activity with a child during the trial is now due to be sentenced next month (April 2025).
All three defendants were prosecuted through the National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood.
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 the single largest law enforcement investigation into non-familial child sexual abuse in the UK.
The 30 sex offenders included in the list have been jailed for a combined total of 458 years and six months.
Speaking after Houphouet and Sigiyo were jailed, an NCA spokesperson said a total of 1,100 victims have been identified, and a number of active investigations remain ongoing.
*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.
1. Faces of 30 sex offenders jailed so far as part of Operation Stovewood
Top row, left to right: Ashgar Bostan; Sajid Ali; Riaz Makhmood; Zaheer Iqbal; Tony Chapman and Darren Hyett. Second row, left to right: Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar; Asif Ali; Nabeel Kurshid; Iqlak Yousaf; Tanweer Hussain Ali and Salah Ahmed El-Hakam . Third row, left to right: Aftab Hussain; Abid Saddiq; Masaued Malik; Sharaz Hussain; Mohammed Ahsan and David Saynor. Fourth row: Adam Ali; Mohammed Amar Yasser Ajaibe; Mohammed Zameer Sadiq; Mohammed Siyab and Abid Saddiq. Bottom row, left to right: Tahir Yasin; Shahid Hussain; David Fish; Absolom Sigiyo and Stefan Romauld Houphouet | Adobe/Stovewood
2. Romauld Stefan Houphouet and Absolom Sigiyo
Romauld Stefan Houphouet, 37, an Ivoirian national of Sheffield, and Absolom Sigiyo, 42, a Zimbabwean national of Rotherham were found guilty of raping two 15-year-old girls countless times between 2011 and 2012, at Sheffield Crown Court on March 3, 2025. Sigiyo was also found guilty of intimidating one of the victims when he pressured her in an attempt to stop her supporting the NCA investigation launched in 2018. During a sentencing hearing held on March 5, 2025, Houphouet was sentenced to 20 years in prison and Sigiyo has been jailed for 18 years and six months. The judge ordered that both men would be subject to restraint orders, to prevent them contacting the victims, and that they must sign the Sexual Offences Register. The victims told investigators they were taken to numerous parties in Rotherham where they were given alcohol and abused by the men, some of whom openly referred to them as “fresh meat”. Jacek Brzozowski 35, a Polish national of Rotherham, will be sentenced for sexual activity with one of the girls at Sheffield Crown Court on April 14, 2025. | NCA
3. David Fish: Abuser jailed for over a decade
A man who subjected a vulnerable young girl to years of sustained sexual abuse 17 years ago has been jailed for 12 years. David Fish, 46, of Kilnhurst in Rotherham, raped, wounded and forced the girl to take part in sexually explicit videos over the course of two years. Fish began grooming the girl in 2007, when she was around 15 years old and in care. After approaching the girl and her friends at a local park, Fish, who was in his 20s, exchanged numbers with her. The young girl was infatuated with the much-older Fish, who often plied her with drugs and alcohol, going on to exploit her trust in him by coercing her into sex. The victim recalled on one occasion waking up to find Fish raping her. She told National Crime Agency investigators how Fish would turn violent and in one incident – when he believed she had been flirting with someone else – he smashed a mug against her head with such force that she required stitches for the resulting injury. Officers from Operation Stovewood – the NCA’s investigation into historic allegations of sexual abuse in Rotherham – launched an investigation in 2018, after reviewing a report the victim had made to police. The victim, by then in her 20s, agreed to talk to NCA officers. After investigators listened to the woman’s account, they identified corroborating evidence and arrested Fish in 2020. The officers seized Fish’s computer and digital forensic specialists subsequently trawled through a huge quantity of files saved on it. They recovered graphic sexual images of the victim as a child, which Fish had taken and kept. This evidence supported the victim’s testimony that Fish had filmed sexual videos of her – allegations which he had fervently denied. He was sentenced today at Sheffield Crown Court on November 5, 2024 for two counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of causing or inciting child prostitution or pornography, one count of rape, and one count of unlawful wounding. | NCA
4. Neil King: Callous Rotherham paedophile who abused vulnerable girls shows no remorse
Callous Neil King appeared emotionless, both as he was sent to begin a 21-year prison sentence for 17 serious historic sexual offences - including two counts of rape - and as the continuing devastation he has caused the two young girls he abused was laid bare. Sending King, aged 51, to begin his lengthy prison sentence, Judge Sarah Wright told him: “Your victims were targeted, sexualised and subjected to acts of a degrading nature. “Both were vulnerable…each of them has shown the utmost courage in coming to give evidence, after trying to bury this for so many years.” A Sheffield Crown Court hearing held on September 20, 2024 heard how both of the girls King abused, who were 13 and 14, respectively, when it started, had worked to rebuild their lives; and felt stunned and surprised when detectives from the National Crime Agency unexpectedly visited them, years later, to ask them about the abuse. Judge Wright said the fortitude the complainants, both of whom are now young women, had demonstrated by dredging up their trauma, and by giving ‘compelling’ evidence at King’s trial ‘knowing they would be accused of lying’, was ‘considerable’ and ‘commendable’. King’s shameful abuse of the complainants which began when he was 38-years-old continued in court when he had the audacity to claim that the complainants had only come forward to seek compensation, but jurors rejected his account when they found him guilty of all charges he faced at the conclusion of the trial on July 24, 2024. Judge Wright said it must have been ‘very difficult’ having the court proceedings hanging over the complainants for more than three years, something which had been exacerbated by knowing King, of Meadow Street, Rotherham, ‘had not shown one ounce of remorse’ for what he had done, even after the guilty verdicts were returned. | NCA