The grooming cases that cast a shadow over a city

Bradford's inclusion in the new national independent inquiry into grooming gangs follows years of mounting pressure for further scrutiny on an issue that has haunted the city for decades.

The scale of the crisis has already seen dozens of men jailed in a series of major trials, many involving historic abuse uncovered years later.

Across Bradford, 66 people have so far been convicted over the past 10 years in cases involving non‑recent, group-based child sexual exploitation, according to police figures, with a further 24 investigations currently ongoing.

One of those cases resulted in 15 men being jailed for raping a teenage girl in Bradford over a four-year-period from 2007 to 2011.

The victim, who was aged between 14 and 18 at the time, said the attacks and aftermath had "consumed my life for just short of 20 years".

The men were sentenced earlier this month following a series of trials between November 2023 and May 2026 at Bradford Crown Court in what police described as a "long and complex investigation".

Another case involved a 15-year-old girl who married her abuser in an Islamic wedding ceremony.

The victim was groomed and sexually abused by men from the age of 13, with the abuse continuing when she was in a Bradford children's home.

Last May Raja Zulqurnean was found guilty of rape and indecent assault. He was initially jailed for 18 years but his term was increased to 23 years by appeal court judges.

At the time, the victim told the BBC: "This was far more than a grooming case. This was an institutional scandal and no one cared for my wellbeing.

"I was married to an abuser. How could a child marry? Social services enabled it," she said.

Along with Zulqurnean, a further eight men were convicted in connection with her abuse.

Months before that conviction, in January 2025, brothers Imtiaz Ahmed and Fayaz Ahmed were jailed alongside Ibrar Hussain for abusing a vulnerable teenage girl in the late 1990s.

Judge Ahmed Nadim said the girl's mother had tried to report her missing to police "on a number of occasions", but nothing was done.

The judge said police and social services were "either ill-equipped to properly understand what was happening at street level", or "disinterested in addressing the needs of [the victims]".

Another five men had previously been jailed for their involvement.

Those cases - and the concerns surrounding them - will now fall under the spotlight of the new inquiry which will examine the scale of offending and questions over responses.

Chaired by Baroness Anne Longfield CBE, the Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs will require individuals and institutions to explain what they "did or did not do to protect children from being sexually abused", the organisation said.

Survivor Fiona Goddard, who was sexually abused as a child by groups in men in Bradford, was among those to welcome the announcement.

She said: "Bradford has evaded inquiries for many, many years and it's time that the full truth about what happened comes out.

"It's one thing prosecuting the perpetrators of these crimes - that should have been a given - but the people that chose to go into safeguarding roles that made these decisions, that weren't just turning a blind eye to the child abuse, it aided and facilitated it.

"The decisions that were made directly contributed to further abuse."

She added: "We need to know the why and who and how."

Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.