Three brothers have gone on trial accused of grooming and sexually exploiting underage girls in Barrow-in-Furness.
The Miah brothers – Joman, 37; Amran, 47; and Alman, 46 – are originally from Beeston in Leeds, where Joman and Amran are also accused of indecently assaulting two girls from the age of six and seven.
The alleged offences took place between February 1996 and February 2010 and involved five girls.
One of the girls claimed Joman sexually assaulted her at least weekly at a mosque in Leeds, where he taught the Qur’an and she was his pupil. She was aged seven to nine at the time, and Joman was 17 to 19.
A jury at Preston crown court heard that Joman went on to abuse her and another girl when he moved to Barrow around 2008 to work in Iesha’s, a takeaway owned by his family.
In Barrow, Joman was known as “Saj”, pronounced Sarge. There, he had a sexual relationship with a local girl when she was aged 13 to 16 and he was in his early-to-mid 20s. At one point he moved in with her and her mother, who abused drugs and alcohol, the court heard. He admitted to the sexual relationship but insisted he thought the girl was 16, the jury was told.
Opening the prosecution case on Friday, the barrister Tim Evans said the girl was picked up from school in her uniform each day by Joman. He would take her to Iesha’s, where they would have sex most days, either on the sofa or in a bed.
“A key part of the ‘relationship’ was that Joman was treating [her] to pretty much whatever she wanted: buying her presents, topping up her phone, as well as buying her and her friends food,” said Evans. “He would buy her cigarettes, he would buy her beer and give her £40 in cash in a month, about which she would tell her mum that it was her wages for working at the takeaway. She wasn’t working. She was having sex with him.”
About five months into their relationship, Joman allegedly began taking her to have sex in a Barrow hotel, the Gables, sneaking her in late at night when no one was on reception. A witness to their relationship thought the girl was “head over heels in love with Saj”, the court heard.
A fourth woman, who accuses Amran (also known as Jai) of raping her, told police she saw “many young girls at the takeaway, some downstairs, some upstairs and others out the back”, Evans told the court.
She told detectives she challenged Joman about his inappropriate relationship with her friend. “He replied that he was doing nothing wrong and that in his religion a girl could marry an adult male from the age of nine,” Evans said.
Joman’s older brother, Alman, also had sex with the girl when she was 15, the court heard.
That girl spoke to Cumbria police in late 2009 about what was going on with the brothers, but no charges were brought, the court heard. Amran found out and threatened to hurt her family if she spoke out again, the jury was told.
Amran denies 14 sexual offences, two charges of intimidation and one of kidnap. Joman denies 34 sexual offences and Alman two.
The trial continues.
