Government urged to introduce tougher sentences for grooming gang offenders
Government urged to introduce tougher sentences for grooming gang offenders
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Grooming gang offenders should receive full-life prison sentences, Robert Jenrick has said as he requested a review into “disgracefully short” punishments handed to three men. The shadow justice secretary told MPs he had written to the Attorney General, the UK Government’s chief legal adviser, about three members of a grooming gang that had targeted two teenage girls in West Yorkshire in the 1990s.
Mr Jenrick said he had asked Lord Hermer to assess whether the jail terms were “potentially unduly lenient”. Ibrar Hussain, 47; Imtiaz Ahmed, 62; and Fayaz Ahmed, 45, were sent to prison for six-and-a-half years, nine years, and seven-and-a-half years respectively at Bradford Crown Court earlier this month, by a judge who described how they raped one of the girls in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in the 1990s, when she was 13 or 14.
Speaking at justice questions, Mr Jenrick told the House of Commons: “Two weeks ago, three grooming gang members were sentenced for the most appalling rapes of children at Bradford Crown Court, but they only received six, seven and nine-year sentences respectively.
“Six years, out on licence in four, for the rape of a child. Does the Secretary of State agree with me that these sentences are disgracefully short and will she commit to using the sentencing review to mandate full-life sentences for these evil people?.
