Rotherham abuse trial: Policeman and councillor '˜did '˜no prosecution' deal with Arshid Hussain'

A policeman and a councillor were involved in a deal for an alleged child abuser to hand over a missing teenage girl in exchange for him not being prosecuted, a court heard.
Arshid Hussain arrives at Sheffield Crown CourtArshid Hussain arrives at Sheffield Crown Court
Arshid Hussain arrives at Sheffield Crown Court

A jury at Sheffield Crown Court was told an officer named as ‘PC Ali’ and a man named ‘Akhtar’ – described by the alleged victim as ‘a councillor of Rotherham’ – had been involved in an agreement for her to be handed over at a petrol station by defendant Arshid Hussain.

In video interviews played to the jury, the now 30-year-old woman, known as Girl J, said she had been twice made pregnant by Hussain. She said the first time was when she was 14 and he persuaded her to have an abortion by saying he would be sent to prison if she had the baby.

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She said she later had a child after Hussain made her pregnant a second time when she was 15.

The woman said she would regularly go missing from home to be with Hussain, who is now aged 40. She said on one occasion people had been calling him as they feared he would be arrested for ‘kidnapping’.

The woman said: “I remember being in the car with Ash and everybody was ringing, there was both his brothers, there was Akhtar which is some kind of relative.

“They was basically saying, ‘You need to get her back home sharpish’.

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“I remember him being stood outside a phone box and he was on the phone to PC Ali.”

She said she and Hussain dealt with PC Ali ‘all the time’ and ‘got on really well’ with him. She said after the phone call ‘Ash got back in the car and he said ‘I need to take you back’”.

The woman said: “He dropped me off at a petrol station in Ferham and I remember there was quite a lot of police officers, there was Akhtar there and I remember getting in a car but I don’t think it was a police car.”

The woman said she was not certain but believed ‘Akhtar’ and another man had driven her home.

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When asked who Akhtar was, she said: “He’s a councillor of Rotherham. He’s some kind of relative to Ash. Basically they said to me if he dropped me off at the petrol station he wouldn’t be prosecuted. Otherwise I think they was looking at charging with like kidnapping or something.”

The woman said on another occasion when she had run away from home, a police officer had given Hussain ‘the heads up’ people were looking for her.

The trial continues.