Three alleged grooming gang perpetrators are to face trial have denied raping a teenage schoolgirl more than 15 years ago in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham. Khamir Ifzal Khan, Mudasser Hussain and Ghazanfar Hussain appeared at Sheffield Crown Court today charged with the historic alleged attacks on the child between upto 2010.
Khan, 36, now of no fixed abode but previously from Rotherham, denied two counts of rape and one count of trafficking of a person in the UK. Mudasser Hussain, 36, of Henley Grove Road, Rotherham, pleaded not guilty to 12 counts of rape while Ghazanfar Hussain, 40, of Rosebery Street, Rotherham, denied one count of rape. The alleged victim was aged 14 or 15 at the time, the National Crime Agency has previously said.
All three men were bailed before their trial which was fixed by Judge Sarah Wright for May 5, 2026, and is due to last about three weeks.
The three men all appeared together in the dock for the 15-minute long hearing on Monday when the 16-count indictment, which covers a period from 2009 to 2010, was read to them.
The men were arrested as part of the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, which is called Operation Stovewood.
The NCA says Stovewood is the single largest law enforcement operation of its kind undertaken in the UK, and has identified more than 1,100 children involved in the exploitation between those dates.
Previous estimates have put the cost of Operation Stovewood at about £90 million.