Members of a Rotherham grooming gang received over £600,000 in legal help, GB News can reveal.
A total of £611,204 in aid was splashed out on the predators – with the gang’s ringleader receiving a total of £143,696 in funding.
In this case, seven defendants were convicted and handed a jail sentence for 101 years in 2018 for their abuse of five girls in Rotherham between 1998 and 2005.
The gang’s ringleader – Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar – was given a jail sentence of 23 years.
Patrick Christys revealed on his GB News show: “The taxpayer-funded legal aid paid to the legal representatives acting for a single Rotherham grooming gang has topped £600,000.
“The costs are set to soar further. Ringleader Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar was handed a whopping £143,500 to fund his defence at trial between 2017 to 2019.
“These are new figures released in a Freedom of Information request. He was caged for 23 years in 2018 for a string of previous sex offences against young girls, but that total I outlined there does not include costs for a separate trial last year, in which he was handed a further 12-year stretch for raping a vulnerable 13-year-old girl he had plied with drugs and alcohol.
“His sentence is set to run concurrently.”
The funding that he has racked up does not include his time going on trial for another conviction for raping a 13-year-old girl after he plied her with drugs and alcohol.
Meanwhile, a further five perpetrators – who were each jailed for around 10 and 20 years – received up to £99,168 in legal aid, while the seventh gang member was given £90,849.
All – excluding one defendant – were found guilty of rape.
One convict fell asleep while victims’ impact statements were read out to the court.
The latest revelation on the cost of the trials come as accusations are thrown at the Government after Labour seemingly backtracked on its promise to deliver an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
A package of £5million – which was originally ear-marked to fund five local inquiries – will now fund individual projects, such as victims’ panels.
As a result, the move has led some to speculate that the Labour Party was attempting to appease Pakistani voters.
Meanwhile, former Equalities Commission chief Sir Trevor Phillips said that ministers were “utterly shameful” for their action.
Patrick hit out at the “astonishing” costs, adding: “You also pay the wages of Jess Phillips, Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer as well.
“And has there been a bigger, more barefaced betrayal of the Pakistani rape gang victims than what Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has just served up?”
Kim Harrison, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL), said: “The Government has effectively dumped the recommendations on its ‘too hard’ pile, thereby brushing away victims and survivors as an inconvenience.”
A spokeswoman for the Home Office added: “Any claims that the funding has been watered down, or that we are backing down from supporting local inquiries, is patently false.
“A flexible approach to funding will allow us to support more than five inquiries.”
The Legal Aid Agency confirmed that funding is paid to their legal representatives – rather than defendants directly “to ensure access to justice and, in criminal cases, to ensure a fair trial”.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/grooming-gangs-rotherham-predators-legal-aid