Inside The Basement Where A Pensioner And His Wife Kept Deaf And Mute Girl As a Sex Slave For NINE YEARS
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
These are the harrowing pictures of the basement where a deaf mute was repeatedly raped by a pensioner who trafficked her from Pakistan so he could receive extra benefits.
The girl spent 49 days reliving her nine-year ordeal as a 'sex slave' for Ilyas Ashar in the witness box, a testimony believed to be the longest ever given by a witness in UK courts.
During her horrific experience in the basement, which began when she was 10 years old, she was sexually assaulted whilst carrying out daily household chores for the Ashar family and their friends.
She told Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester through sign language how she was beaten, slapped and forced to work as a domestic servant in the cellar of the £300,000 Victorian house.
Throughout the 280 hours of harrowing evidence giving, the victim broke down in tears on a number of occasions when her stories were challenged.
During the trial the girl gave her evidence by video link in a private room and was accompanied throughout by two interpreters who had to translate in both sign language and Urdu.
She was also forced to watch 14 videos police made of her interviews and, when she learned Ashar would be watching, she begged the judge for assurance she would be kept away from the couple after the trial.
Using sign she said: 'I am very nervous. I am feeling extremely anxious and nervous.'
Sometimes she was beaten if the food she served the family was too hot or spicy.
Whenever the girl was summoned from the cellar to carry out chores, she said lights would be flicked on and off as a signal and sometimes she would be dragged by the hair if she was too slow in responding.
While Ashar used his victim to satisfy his sexual desires the girl was also used to steal more than £30,000 in benefits on her behalf.
Two female jurors wept as guilty verdicts were delivered on 13 counts of rape.
One woman on the jury covered her face with her hands while a male juror held the hand of another female juror who was weeping.
All were excused from sitting as jurors again for 10 years after hearing the shocking details of the case.
She was first brought to the UK in June 2005 when she was around 10 years old.
The passport she was using claimed she was 20 years old and it was a matter of 'mystery and concern' how immigration officials at Heathrow did not notice.
For almost a decade the girl, now aged 19 or 20, had to work and sleep in the cellar at the family’s home in Cromwell Road, Eccles in Salford.
Ashar was convicted of 13 counts of rape. He had been convicted at an earlier trial of two counts of trafficking a person into the UK for exploitation, two counts of furnishing false information to obtain a benefit and one of permitting furnishing of false information to obtain a benefit.
His wife, Tallat Ashar, 68, was found guilty of two counts of trafficking a person into the UK for exploitation and four counts of furnishing false information to obtain a benefit.
His daughter, Faaiza Ashar, 46, was found guilty at an earlier trial of two counts of furnishing false information to obtain a benefit and one count of permitting furnishing of false information to obtain a benefit.
All three were convicted at the earlier trial, but the jury were unable to reach verdicts on the allegations of rape so Ashar was re-tried.
The girl had no family or friends in the UK and had never been to school in Pakistan or Britain.
She could not read or write and the only people she knew in Britain were the Ashars, who told her both her parents were dead.
