Rotherham trial: Basharat Hussain '˜regularly met corrupt detective in Aldi car park'

Sheffield Crown Court heard an alleged victim of Basharat Hussain said she had met the senior police officer between the ages of 16 and 18 at an Aldi car park in Rotherham.

She said she believed the policeman was passing information to Hussain about attempts to arrest him, as well as the location of a safe house she had discussed being moved to escape her abuser.

The woman also said Hussain frequently had tens of thousands of pounds in cash from money he had made from drugs.

In video interviews played to the jury, the woman, known as Girl L, said she had discussions with the police about her family moving and changing their identities after previously having panic alarms installed in their house due to his violence towards her.

She said the potential move to a safe house fell through after Hussain rung her with details about her conversations with police.

The now 30-year-old woman, whose sexual and physical abuse began at the age of 15, said: “Bash phoned me and told me this is what were happening and he actually told me where I were going.

“So obviously that were a no.”

She added: “He said he’d always got somebody in CID to tell him these sorts of things and he used to pay this person in CID money.

This person said what’s happening with like me and he’d always tell him when he were going to get busted.”

The woman said she had previously met a policeman who she couldn’t remember the name of but would recognise if she saw a photo.

She said: “I met this person from about being 16 to 18 year old at Aldi car park.

“He would never get in the car with me and Bash. Bash used to get in his car.”

The woman also told the court that Hussain used to store drugs at the Aldi car park.

She said he also stashed more than £100,000 of drugs money in his car and a teenage abuse victim’s bedroom, a court heard.

Sheffield Crown Court heard an alleged victim of Basharat Hussain say the defendant stored around £40,000 in shoeboxes in his car and kept ‘80-odd grand’ in the room of another teenage girl he was said to be abusing.

In video interviews played to the jury, the woman, known as Girl L, said: “He was making so much profit from drugs.”

She said on another occasion, she had seen around £100,000 in cash in a flat he lived in - money she said Hussain told her he had made from selling cars.

Hussain is one of five men and two women on trial for dozens of child sexual exploitation offences against 12 now-adult women in Rotherham.

The woman said Hussain repeatedly carried out violent assaults on her, hitting, slapping, kicking and spitting on her on numerous occasions during an abusive relationship that lasted for around 13 years.

She said after two serious attacks - one in York and another in Turkey - he had non-consensual sex with her minutes later.

The woman said Hussain had threatened to burn down her brother’s house and had sent her text messages saying he was going to shoot her when she attempted to stop their contact.

The woman said when Hussain had gone on the run to Pakistan when he was wanted by the police, he had attempted to persuade her to go the country with him.

She said she had got to Manchester Airport but had been unable to face going.

“I got the airport and just thought ‘I can’t do this’,” she said.

“I knew what my life would be.”

The trial continues.