- At least 1,400 girls were abused, trafficked and manipulated.
- Police and social services failed to stop abuse, report says
- Some 36 people have been convicted so far as a result of the operation.
LONDON: Seven men who sexually abused two girls two decades ago were given hefty 106-year jail sentences in Britain on Friday following Britain's biggest-ever investigation into child abuse.
The men were jailed for between seven and 25 years after being convicted in June for offences committed in Rotherham, northern England, in the early 2000s.
The cases are the result of the National Crime Agency's (NCA) Operation Stovewood, a decade-long investigation into child sexual abuse that is the largest of its kind in UK history.
It began in 2014, after the publication of the Jay Report, which shocked the entire country.
At least 1,400 girls were found to have been abused, trafficked and groomed by male gangs in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.
The report concluded that police and social services failed to stop the abuse.
Some 36 people have so far been convicted as a result of the operation, according to the NCA, which investigates serious, organised and international crime.
The latest convictions came at the end of a nine-week trial at Sheffield Crown Court.
The trial heard how the victims, who were aged between 11 and 16 at the time of the offences and in the care of social services, were manipulated and often given alcohol or cannabis before being raped or assaulted.
They were often picked up by their abusers from the children's homes where they were living at the time, the NCA said.
“These men were cruel and manipulative, grooming their victims and then exploiting them by subjecting them to the most horrific abuse possible,” said NCA senior investigating officer Stuart Cobb.
Sheffield Crown Court heard how the attacks took place at locations around Rotherham, in a park, in a car, in a supermarket car park, in a cemetery and even behind a nursery.
The NCA said one of the girls was taken to a hotel where two men raped her. In another incident, the same girl was locked in her home by her abuser. He raped her twice. She later managed to escape from the house by climbing through a window.
According to the NCA, Mohammed Amar, Mohammed Siyab, Yasser Ajaibe, Mohammed Zameer Sadiq, Abid Saddiq, Tahir Yassin and Ramin Bari have been jailed for crimes they committed between April 2003 and April 2008, the LBC website reported.
Rotherham, a once prosperous industrial town, has suffered years of economic decline.
