FINDING her missing sister’s Adidas trainer by the canal, Sarah Wilson’s heart sank, and she collapsed to the ground in tears.
Her beloved sibling Laura, 17, had been stabbed 42 times and left for dead in the water in what was dubbed Britain’s first white “honour killing”.
Sarah Wilson with a photo of her beloved sister Laura, who was murdered in 2010 Credit: Andy Kelvin – The Sun
Laura Wilson (left) and Sarah Wilson (right) aged 14 or 15 Credit: Sarah Wilson
Sadly it wasn’t the first tragedy Sarah had been forced to live through – as since aged 11, she’d been groomed, raped and sex trafficked all over the country by an evil .
Now age 34, after bravely fighting to see her abusers put behind bars for 11 years over three , which only ended in February this year, she is facing a fresh heartache.
New laws being brought in under the , mean two of her rapists will be freed earlier after serving just a third of their sentences – in a government bid to free up overcrowded prisons.
That means grooming gang member Obaidullah Omari, who got 19 years for abusing Sarah and another child, and Riyasth Hussain, who raped her when she was 13, and got 20 years, will be getting out early.
Sarah is devastated two of her abusers will be released early Credit: Andy Kelvin – The Sun
Riyasth Hussain who was sentenced to 20 years, is due to have his sentence slashed by a third under new laws Credit: PA
Obaidullah Omari is also set for early release under the new Sentencing Act Credit: NCA
The seven monsters accused of exploiting Sarah between the ages of 11 and 16 l-r Mohammed Amar, Mohammed Siyab, Yasser Ajaibe, Mohammed Zameer Sadiq, Abid Saddiq, Tahir Yassin and Ramin Bari Credit: Not known, clear with picture desk
Laura’s other abusers; Mohammed Siyab and Abid Saddiq each received 24-year sentences for offences including rape and unlawful sexual intercourse, with Siyab also convicted of trafficking. Mohammed Zameer Sadiq was jailed for 15 years for rape and unlawful sexual intercourse, while Mohammed Amar and Yasser Ajaibe received 14 years and six years respectively for indecent assault.
In an emotional interview with The Sun, Sarah, who has waived her anonymity, said: “We’re being let down all over again. It’s another scandal all over again.
“I’ve been involved in investigations against my abusers for 11 years.
“Over the past two years I’ve gone through three criminal trials with eight perpetrators, seven who were convicted.
“Now I’ve been told the two most recent ones will be getting out early.
“It’s disgusting, I’ve just finished fighting, getting justice and now justice is being taken away.
“I got 125 years justice but that’s not a dab on what they’ve put us through and now I get told some of their sentences will be reduced.”
Sarah added: “We need to think about the survivors that have come forward and are still all going through criminal investigations, waiting for trials. How are they feeling? I know one survivor, she’s said to me ‘What’s the point?’
“And what is the point? Why are we re-traumatising ourselves in our trials for them to get a slap on the wrist?
“Historic survivors have waited over 20 years for justice. For this government to then turn around and say, ‘Well, yeah, you might have waited over 20 years, but oh well, we need more space for people that do petty crimes and hurty words.’”
Sarah’s hellish ordeal started in 2003 when she was introduced to do older Asian men though a friend, at just 11-years-old at the height of the in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
She said: “We met them on Ferham Primary School playground and they had some vodka.
“The two guys there asked me to do a ‘virginity test’, where I had to put my legs together.
“If I had a gap between my legs, it meant I wasn’t a virgin. If I didn’t have a gap, it meant I was a virgin. Bearing in mind, I was an 11-year-old little skinny child. So obviously I had a gap between my legs.
“So when I put my legs together, this gap was there. They started laughing at me as like it was a crime.
“Within a couple of minutes, I was sent off to a section of the school which had some trees and a a little wall bed and that’s when one of the men made me perform a sexual act on him.
“And from that day, my innocence was stolen.”
Sarah said the grooming and abuse continued until she was about 16, with the first two perpetrators introducing her to other men and her exploitation “rocketed out of control”.
The men would ply her with alcohol, cannabis and pills and traffic her up and down the country – to towns and cities including Wakefield, Braford, Halifax, London and Sheffield.
Sarah said: “There was no help from anybody to get me out of this situation – social services just cast me as a child prostitute.
“There’s been plenty of times where social workers have called me a slag.
“The would blaming me and my actions, and not the perpetrators. Because I kept on going back, saying I obviously wanted it, but that wasn’t true at all. I had no choice but to go back.
Extract from Laura’s childcare records, shared with The Sun Credit: Sarah Wilson
Laura Wilson was stabbed to death aged just 17 Credit: Sarah Wilson
Sarah (left) found her sister Laura’s trainer, leading cops to where her body was tragically found Credit: Sarah Wilson How to report a sexual assault
- Contact a doctor or practice nurse at your GP surgery.
- Contact a voluntary organisation, such as Rape Crisis , Women’s Aid , Victim Support , The Survivors Trust or Male Survivors Partnership .
- Call the 24-hour freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge , on 0808 2000 247.
- Speak to the rape and sexual abuse support line run by Rape Crisis England and Wales – you can call the helpline on 0808 500 2222 or use the online chat (both are free and are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year).
“There was violence, there was threatening behaviours towards my family.
“When I’d be trafficked, I’d have my phone taken off me. If I wouldn’t cooperate with what they wanted me to do, they would leave me in the middle of nowhere and I’d have to walk back home alone.”
Sarah’s mum did her best to try and help her daughter – but her pleas were met on deaf ears.
She said: “My mum went to police many times.
“In fact, in my child care records, there’s a part in it where my mum was reporting me missing that much to the , the police said, ‘If you report Sarah missing again, we’re going to fine you’.”
Sarah shared the extract of her social services files where this is recorded with The Sun.
Aged, 16 Sarah managed to escape the clutches of her abusers and try and put her life back together.
But her life was to be turned upside again by the murder of her sister Laura in 2010 by her ex-boyfriend Ashtiaq Ashgar, who was angry she’d told his family about their relationship.
Sarah said: “Our Laura had never gone missing. We always knew where she was.
“This night, I was babysitting her daughter. And she was supposed to come home we could have a takeaway and watch a scary movie, but she didn’t come back home.
“The next morning, my mum got a phone call off one of Laura’s friends, who was worried he hadn’t seen her
“And then from that point, because she’d never been missing, we all got started getting worried.
“My mum reported her missing and I remember going down the canal.
“It was starting to get dark and we were going inside the birdhuts, just to see if we could see her, if she’d had too much to drink the night before. It was just uncanny for her to go missing. We didn’t find her.
“That night, I got in the shower. And when I got in the shower, I felt like I was washing myself with dirty water. And it was like someone or something was telling me she was in that canal.
“And I wasn’t going to rest until I found her.
“So on the Monday morning, I said that I was having a search party at 12pm for everyone to come and meet me down at the at the canal.
“ I sent everyone in different directions. I said, if you find any clothing, ring me and I’ll come straight to you.
“I was walking through swamps. People were having to drag me out saying, ‘Sarah, no, you’re going to sink’.”
Sarah pictured at age 13, two years after her grooming ordeal began Credit: Sarah Wilson
Mum Maggie with Laura (centre) and Sarah (right) as children Credit: Sarah Wilson
Laura now, age 34, says it’s been ‘let down after let down’ in her and Laura’s cases Credit: Sarah Wilson
Sarah then received a call from her nan and aunty and went to meet them.
Tearfully, she recalled: “Laura never had any reason to go down that way of the canal but I thought I’d go meet them anyway.
“As we were walking, I saw a red patch on the floor. I got on my hands and knees to investigate – it looked like a load of crushed berries.
“The next minute, my auntie Annette picked up Laura’s trainer and went: ‘Is this our Laura’s, Sarah?’
“I turned around and it was our Laura’s shoe. And I just collapsed. And I wanted to jump into water there and then. I wanted to pull her out.
“I knew she was there. The cops had said that they had sent sniffer dogs down there and not one cop was seen.
“Everyone had to stop me from jumping in the canal.
“When a cop turned up, I was so angry I wanted to smash his face in. Everyone had to pull me back and he said, ‘If you touch me, I’m going to arrest you.’
“I was screaming ‘My sister’s in there, get her out now!”
Sarah and her mum were later given the news they had been dreading, Laura’s body was in the canal, in the exact location they had found the shoe.
She said: “I went to run out of the flat to go and find who did this and kill them. Everyone had to sit on top of me. I started being sick.
“The coppers, after they’d pulled her out, asked me, ‘How did I know which part of the canal she were in? I said it was sister’s instincts.
“They said, if I hadn’t have found her when I did the current would have taken her away and we may never have found her.
“She was holding on to the side. Her fingers had gripped on to the side of the canal under water as she died and she was still holding on.”
Officials response to Sarah's story
A spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice said:
A government spokesperson said:
“The grooming gangs scandal was one of Britain’s darkest moments. That’s why we launched an Independent Inquiry, toughened sentencing so these vile predators face longer sentences and have driven child sex offence convictions to record levels.
“But because this government is sending more of these vile offenders to prison, and with just 500 prison places added under the last government, failing to act would mean prisons running out of space as early as November. That would leave us unable to lock up serious offenders at all.
“We are fixing that failure by building 14,000 prison places with 3,200 already delivered. Offenders judged by a judge to be the most dangerous offenders are excluded, prison rule-breakers can be locked up for longer, and those released can face 24/7 monitoring, restrictions on their movements, tagging their location and being banned from attending public events, pubs and clubs.”
Nicola Curley, Executive Director for Children & Young Peoples Services at Rotherham Council said: “Rotherham Council remains deeply sorry for the failings that let down Sarah and other young people in the past and Sarah has shown immense courage in speaking out about her experiences.
“The failings in Rotherham in relation to child sexual exploitation were wholly unacceptable. The Council and its partners have been clear about that and remain committed to supporting victims and survivors of those horrific crimes.
“Over the past decade, we have transformed how we protect children and young people. We have focused on listening to the voices and lived experiences of victims and survivors to drive meaningful change and using those lessons to drive lasting improvements across our services and partnerships.”
Assistant Chief Constable Hayley Barnett of South Yorkshire Police said: “The harm suffered by Sarah Wilson is simply abhorrent and I fully acknowledge the past failures of this force only added to the trauma she has faced. I am so very sorry for this, and I know how long and challenging the journey has been for Sarah to finally secure justice.
“The voices of victims and survivors like Sarah are today heard loud and clear. Thanks to their bravery and courage in speaking up, our understanding and response to child sexual exploitation (CSE) is unrecognisable. We work hard to deliver a victim-centred and suspect-focused service, which adapts to the complex and evolving nature of this type of offending.
“It is never too late to make a report of non-recent child sexual offences. If you are ready, please contact us and I assure you we will listen, we will believe you and we will do everything in our power to take appropriate action in line with your wishes.”
At court her ex-boyfriend Ashgar was sentenced to 17 and a half years for Laura’s violent murder.
Sarah said: “We had to sit in court and watch Four Lions because they’d used extracts out of the film to message each other, like, ‘We’re going to spill her beans’, meaning we’re going to spill her blood and ‘We’re going to send that ‘Kuffar’ [Arabic term for a non-Muslim] b***h straight to hell.’
“Laura had gone out with Ash [Ashgar] and when they split up she got with his friend and got pregnant – she only went with the friend to get Ash back – she really loved him.
“Laura told their families about the relationships and they didn’t want their Muslim families to know so they saw it that that she’d fetched shame onto their family. Because she was white.
“They called it Britain’s first white honour killing, but where’s the honour in murder? There is none, is there?”
Sarah also feels angry because a Serious Case Review into Laura’s murder stated that she had been exploited since age 10 – which Sarah does not believe to be true.
She is now fighting to do her own investigation so that she and her family can finally get the truth and begin to grieve.
Sarah said: “The serious case review was saying that she was at risk of exploitation, which is totally true because of me.
“But the unredacted serious case review is public. And a lot of it’s about me being exploited. They have the files mixed up.
“I know for a fact she wasn’t being groomed. She hated those men for what they did to me. It was only when she met Ash, she hung around with any Asian men. She fell in love with the wrong person, but it wasn’t grooming in my opinion, they were the same age.
“We’ve never been allowed to grieve. I’ve not grieved, my mum’s not grieved because we don’t have the answers and we don’t have the truth.
“We’ve always got someone saying, ‘Oh, Laura was exploited from the age of 10 and then she was murdered’ and we know that’s not true.
“I’m hoping authorities look into it again but if not I will investigate myself.
“I just want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and I’m going to find it myself.”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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