JAILED: Rapist who groomed and pimped girl, 15, given 10-year sentence

A man who groomed a 15-year-old girl online before raping her and pimping her to his friends has today been jailed for 10 years.

Ghamer Sulayman, 23, was told by a judge his actions had severely damaged an already vulnerable girl, who described her ordeal at Sulayman's hands during a two-week trial.

Sulayman, who has since married and is expecting a child, exploited the girl on several occasions in July 2016 after spending months grooming her online.

He first met her on July 1 when he and several other men collected her from her grandparents' home in Telford and took her to Birmingham.

At a strange house that night she was plied with alcohol and Sulayman ordered her to engage in sex acts with multiple men, including with two men at the same time.

He told her that if she didn't comply she would have nowhere to stay that night.

Shrewsbury Crown Court heard that Sulayman himself had sex with her twice that night.

He dumped her at a train station the next day to make her own way back to Telford, but the two met up in a Telford supermarket car park on several occasions later that month to have sex consensually.

The court heard that on some other occasions other men would be present at the car park, and that Sulayman "pimped" her to his friends in return for favours.

She was given cannabis, and when she objected to having sex with Sulayman while two other men were in the car, he took no notice.

'Unsafe and degrading'

Prosecuting, Mark Heywood QC said that Sulayman had been the "leading light" in arranging for the girl to be taken from Telford to Birmingham to be exploited, and that she had been coerced into "unsafe and degrading sexual acts".

Sulayman, of Mercia Drive in Kings Heath, Birmingham, was found guilty of one count of rape and two of human trafficking by a jury of seven men and five women.

Today he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, made up of separate 10-year sentences for each of the three offences to run concurrently.

Judge Peter Barrie said that Sulayman had met the victim over social media at a point in early 2016 when she didn't get on with her mother or feel comfortable with her grandparents, with whom she lived.

He told Sulayman: "What followed was a period of four or five months or so where you personally contacted her by phone or by social media.

"I am satisfied that you had spent the previous months grooming her, persuading yourself that she would be willing to engage in wild sexual behaviour and getting her to believe that she liked you.

"You didn't have any genuine affection for her. Nobody who had any genuine affection for her could have contemplated for even a moment getting her involved in what you did to her.

"How harrowing to think that she was so adrift, so lacking in real personal relationships in her life that she clung on to you even after what you had done to her."

Courage

Judge Barrie praised the victim's courage in giving evidence in court and told Sulayman: "She was severely damaged by the way you treated her."

Sulayman was found not guilty of six further counts of rape and one of human trafficking relating to the same victim.

For Sulayman, Mark George QC said that he was still a young man at 23 and that he had no previous convictions.

He also told the court that he had married in 2018 and that he was expecting a baby.

Judge Barrie also ordered an indefinite sexual harm prevention order be made, under which Sulayman can have no contact with his victim or with any child under the age of 16.

Co-defendants Ayad Hizam, 21, and Saleh Qasem, 20, were cleared of charges against them relating to the same girl.

Hizam of Bridgecroft Road, Balsall Heath, faced four counts each of abduction and sexual activity with a child, while Qasem, of Runcorn Road, also Balsall Heath, was charged with one count of human trafficking and one of sexual assault.

The jury took about six and a half hours yesterday to consider their verdict on all three men.