Mohammed Zahid was the leader of the Rochdale grooming gang that was found guilty of sexually abusing two vulnerable young girls from 2001 to 2006. Zahid was operating a lingerie stall in Rochdale Indoor Market, where he used the stall to help lure girls with gifts, including free underwear, money, drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. A predatory pattern emerged with Zahid grooming girls, as young as 13, often from difficult home lives, and exploiting their vulnerabilities to engage in sexual activity with him and occasionally other men in his network.
The abuse occurred to the victims often in run-down flats, car parks, alleyways, and abandoned warehouses. Zahid’s crimes highlighted the horror of grooming gangs and the increasingly obvious concern that social services and law enforcement failed to intervene for years and protect these children from abuse.
Details and impact of the abuse
Zahid’s method of abuse, often described as the “boyfriend model,” involved winning the trust of the victims by supplying essentials and small luxuries before subjecting them to systematic sexual exploitation. The two main victims were essentially treated as “sex slaves,” forced to comply with the gang’s demands continuously. The abuse had a profoundly traumatic impact on the girls, affecting their physical and psychological wellbeing for years.
Testimonies during the trial revealed harrowing accounts of rape and exploitation, highlighting how Zahid and his associates operated with a sense of impunity, confidence backed by perceived untouchability. Despite intervention attempts by social services, systemic failures allowed the abusive network to continue, underscoring institutional shortcomings in safeguarding vulnerable minors from sexual exploitation.
The trial and convictions
The trial of Mohammed Zahid and six others took place at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, and the trial closed in June 2025. All the defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges and were convicted of multiple counts of rape, child sexual abuse, and procurement of children for sexual activity. Zahid was sentenced to the longest term of imprisonment, that being 35 years, to reflect his role in the leadership of this offending, and the seriousness of the offending. His co-defendants received sentences between 12 and 29 years. One defendant had been sentenced in absentia, having fled the UK before the trial. The investigation and subsequent prosecution were conducted by a dedicated unit established by Greater Manchester Police in 2021. The Unit has since convicted over 30 individuals of grooming offences locally. The case sent a strong message about holding offenders accountable and the importance of justice for victims of grooming gangs.
Previous convictions and judicial remarks
In 2016, Mohammed Zahid was previously convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for abusing another 14-year-old girl by using the same grooming techniques. The court stressed the appalling, repeated nature of Zahid’s exploitation, and the lasting psychological and physical harm he had caused. When sentencing for the current case, the judge noted that Zahid’s actions constituted a serious breach of trust and social norms.
The sentence was meant to mark the seriousness of the crime and add deterrent value to the sentence. Zahid maintained he was innocent throughout the trial, but the evidence and testimony from the victims provided an insurmountable burden to his defense. The court noted the victims’ courage in coming forward and the important work the courts must continue to do to combat grooming gangs.
Broader implications and systemic failures
The case of the Rochdale grooming gang – Mohammed Zahid, the ringleader – unveiled deep systemic deficiencies that acted tragically to permit years of sexual exploitation and abuse of vulnerable minors. Zahid, and six other men, subjected two teenage girls to an ongoing campaign of grooming and violence from 2001 until 2006. Social services, law enforcement, and community agencies failing to compensate for action led to the protracted exploitation and suffering experienced by the victims.
This comprehensive analysis surveys institutional failures; the nature of the offending; the response and reforms that followed; and implications for wider society. It will eventually provide context for why the conviction of Zahid represents a crucial and promising moment in British justice.
Mohammed Zahid worked at a lingerie stall at the Rochdale Indoor Market, which was exploited as a base to target vulnerable girls. Each girl who he sought to groom was reportedly given gifts of underwear, money, cigarettes, food, drugs, and alcohol to gain trust and foster dependence, to the extent that he had the girls have sex for him “whenever or wherever” he demanded.
The girls, referred to only as Girl A and Girl B in the court proceedings to protect their identities, were each just 13 years old when Zahid began exploiting them in various demeaning environments, including filthy flats with rotten mattresses, and desolate alleyways and abandoned sites. All of this went largely unchecked and unreported to authorities for lengthy periods despite the fact that both victims were known to social services, with one victim living in a residential care setting.
Zahid’s to carry on his conduct was reflected in the culture of impunity promoted by the status of his actions; Zahid actually believed he was “almost untouchable,” highlighting the brazen nature of his offending.
There were systemic failures at multiple levels. Warnings and complaints had been raised by victims and others, including social workers and other professional and community members, and yet there was a universal failure to take action and/or intervene and investigate. For example, girl B, who had been a ward of the care system for most of her early life, sought assistance, and her care system experience was characterized by stigma, neglect, and being criminalized.
Social services had labelled this child, from about the age of 10, as a “prostitute” (victim-blaming is deemed the worst type of victimization’. Complaints of Zahid’s inappropriate behavior toward other teenage girls in the market were ignored. Although the police investigated Zahid before 2021, they barely scratched the surface of the possibility a short investigation was enough of a barrier. Police had asked the victims to file a report, and there was a sense that somehow the police’s reluctance to confront “grooming gang issues” was collective, institutional hesitancy, or inadequacy. These failures allowed Zahid and his cohorts to prey on victims for many more years, causing further physical and psychological harm.
The advent of the specialized child sexual exploitation investigations unit by Greater Manchester Police marked a change. The investigative processes, to include the development of comprehensive investigations leading to the prosecution of Mohammed Zahid and six co-defendants, showcased the merits of professional investigators and quality investigative processes.
After a trial held at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court that lasted four months and ended in 2025, evidence of difficult, heartbreaking victim testimonies who shared years of abuse although they faced harassment and stigma. The jury found all defendants guilty of multiple counts of rape, sexual abuse of a child, and facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child. Zahid received a 35-year sentence given his key leadership role and the horrendous nature of his offending, while other defendants received sentences which varied from 12 years minimum to 29 years maximum.
It was during the Zahid case that institutional reform was renewed to the fore. Public and political responses called for a national statutory inquiry into the failings of policing and social services that arose historically, which left grooming gangs to operate with relative safety for decades. Criticism included that victims’ voices and experiences were disregarded, while offences were not where authorities had an opportunity to act because of inaction or sometimes political correctness.
The Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office embarked on reforms of victim support, which they insisted included more transparency and better data collection on abuse cases, including ethnicity profiling, where data collection was previously non-existent or inconsistent. The foundations of these planned changes is to prevent further systemic negligence and create better assurances of agency-agency collaboration to quickly and effectively identify, investigate and prosecute grooming cases.
The case continues to be an affecting illustration of the damage done to survivors. Both victims will suffer lifelong trauma as a result of years of abuse during profound developmental stages in their lives. The publicly held hearings and extensive media coverage have raised awareness about what grooming gangs look like in action and how they are empowered by the use of manipulation/distortions, violence and threats of violence, and especially community silence.
Zahid’s behaviors serve as synecdoches of inevitable failures in social systems in this area as well as a cautionary example of why vigilance is required from police, social workers, policymakers, and the public at large. In effect, the case shows that it is important to redouble and re-engage in the collective commitment toward safeguarding vulnerable children as a society and to reinforce investigation and accountability.
The Rochdale grooming gang saga, characterized mostly by Zahid’s actions, shows the devastating impact on children when social systems fail them. It highlights the ways teams of predators take advantage of secrecy and institutional neglect to keep abuse going indefinitely. Zahid’s 35-year sentencing, along with those of his collaborators, not only fulfills the obligation to justice for survivors, but is also the charge for real change. The case reveals the need for multi-faceted, proactive safeguarding frameworks and position survivors’ experiences as the priority. The legal and social reckoning is necessary to prevent others from being victimized to the same extent, and importantly, to reduce the likelihood of children losing the opportunity to experience growing up free from purview in the UK and beyond.