Gang rapists jailed

Osman Ali, Ammar Zahoor and Abdul Sajid have been sentenced to a total of 24 years imprisonment after being found guilty of subjecting a teenage student to a terrifying gang rape.

The 19-year-old student had gone to the home of Ammar Zahoor to chat and 'chill' with others she knew, but suddenly found herself alone with the 18-year-old and his friend Osman Ali, 20.

When she tried to leave she was threatened with a knife and forced to perform a sex act on both men. The men also filmed part of her ordeal on a mobile phone.

One of the men spoke to another friend, Abdul Sajid, on the phone and told him to come around to the house in Rochdale for "some fun".

The victim, who is white, was then taken upstairs and repeatedly raped by Sajid, and later by Ali and Zahoor, in a protracted attack she described as a "living nightmare".

Judge John Phipps said mobile phone footage of part of the attack "demonstrated the callous way in which the defendants went about these offences and the pack mentality which accompanied them.

"Whether or not the events were planned before she got to the house, what happened to her after she arrived at the house amounted to a protracted, frightening and humiliating ordeal for her. She was treated with contempt," he said.

"'It was a group attack, a sustained attack, and the offences involved keeping her in the house against her will and threats of a knife."

Ali, 20, of Corbett Street, Wardleworth, who was described as the 'ring leader' at Liverpool Crown Court, was sentenced to eight and a half years imprisonment.

Sajid, 18, of Dover Street, was convicted of three rape offences after a trial and sentenced to eight years.

Zahoor, 18, of Norman Road, Sparth, was found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to seven and a half years.

A charge of false imprisonment against all three men, which they denied, was ordered to lie on the file.