A woman who has accused eight men from Rochdale of grooming and abusing her as a child wept as she told police she used to consider one of the alleged abusers to be her “best friend”.
The woman, known as Girl A to protect her identity, told detectives that she felt “like a snake in the grass” for accusing Jahn Shahid Ghani of abusing her when she was 14 and he was in his 30s.
Ghani, whom the girl knew as John, used to regularly pick up the girl from school in her uniform and would have sex with her during her lunch break, Manchester Minshull Street crown court heard.
On two occasions he had a “threesome” with her and one of his work friends, a man called Danny, the jury heard. In a police video played to the jury on Monday, the woman said she felt “guilty” for accusing Ghani of abuse.
“I feel guilty for getting him in trouble even though it’s his fault. He shouldn’t have done this stuff to me but he made me feel loved in a way,” she said, breaking down in tears.
She added: “I feel like he was one of my best friends. I feel like a snake in the grass.”
The jury has previously heard how Ghani “badgered” Girl A to give oral sex to a woman called Claire. Neil Usher, prosecuting, described how Girl A eventually gave in, “thinking if she did as they demanded it would shut them up”.
Police began investigating the alleged abuse in 2015, when Girl A made disclosures about her childhood at a parenting course.
Ghani, who is now 50, denies 13 charges relating to Girl A between 1 May 2004 and 1 April 2005, when he was 31 or 32 and she was 14 or 15. He has pleaded not guilty to one count of causing a child to engage in sexual activity, six counts of rape and six counts of having penetrative sex with a child.
Ghani’s younger brother, Mohammed Faisal Ghani, now 38, is also on trial and denies 21 sexual offences, including multiple rapes. He used to refer to Girl A as “the slag of Rochdale, the village bike”, the jury heard on Monday.
The woman also described watching a “timid” school friend, Girl B, being raped at knifepoint in some woods by another man, Ali Razza Hussain Kazmi, who was then 16 or 17.
She described another occasion when Kazmi allegedly raped the other girl in an underpass in front of a crowd after she refused to perform oral sex on him. “He said: ‘I don’t give a fuck … I’ll shag you in front of all my mates,” Girl A told police. He ended up “ripping her pants off” and raping her, the jury heard.
Kazmi initially denied knowing the girls, until police were able to prove he had been a witness at Girl A’s Islamic wedding to another man.
Interviewed by police, Girl A described how the wedding ceremony took her by surprise because she thought it was an engagement party. Then she spotted Kazmi, whom she knew as Ali, and “died on the spot”. He had been invited along by her then fiance’s boss to be a witness, she said.
Kazmi, now 35, denies six sexual offences involving Girl B.
The trial continues.
