A grooming gang who organised “sex parties” at which they plied teenage girls with drink before raping them, face lengthy jail sentences after being convicted of a series of sickening crimes. The men viewed their two 15-year-old victims as “fresh meat” as they lured them to the parties in Britain’s child sex exploitation capital of Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
Romauld Houphouet, 37, an Ivoirian living in Sheffield, and Absolom Sigiyo, 42, a Zimbabwean migrant living in Rotherham, were today found guilty of repeatedly raping the girls between 2011 and 2012. Sigiyo was also found guilty of intimidating one of the victims when he pressured her in an attempt to stop her supporting the National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood investigation launched in 2018. Their accomplice Jacek Brzozwski, 35, a Polish migrant living in Rotherham, pleaded guilty to sexual activity with one of the children.
Undated National Crime Agency (NCA) handout photo of Absolom Sigiyo, who has been found guilty of mu (Image: PA)
The victims told investigators how they were taken to numerous parties in Rotherham where they were given so much alcohol they were sick before being abused by men.
The abuse began within minutes of the victims’ first encounter with Houphouet in 2011. Then aged 24, Houphouet, approached the girls in Rotherham town centre and invited them to a party, before taking one of the girls into an alleyway and raping her.
After the attack, Houphouet took the girls to a house party at Sigiyo’s home where a number of men, including Sigiyo and Brzozwski, had gathered.
The girls endured a year of sexual abuse in this location and at a second property Sigiyo later lived at.
One victim recalled how Houphouet asked her to perform a lap dance for him at the first party before taking her into a bedroom – after she had vomited – and raping her for the second time that evening.
Investigators found that following this first attack the men regularly found the girls in the town centre and pressured them to go to Sigiyo’s home.
The victims described having chaotic lives and living in a care home from which they wanted to escape.
Undated National Crime Agency (NCA) handout photo of Jacek Brzozowski, who has been cleared of the o (Image: PA)
Undated National Crime Agency (NCA) handout photo of Romulad Stefan Houphouet, who has been found gu (Image: PA)
Over a five-week trial Sheffield Crown Court heard how both men took advantage of the girls’ vulnerability, grooming and exploiting them.
Gordon Stables, prosecuting, told the jury both the complainants were living in a children’s home when they were befriended by the defendants “and also other associates”.
Mr Stables said these were “all older men in their twenties, or thereabouts, whose sole intention was to engage in penetrative sexual activity with them, knowing they were under the age of consent”.
The prosecutor said: “The defendants gained the girls’ trust and confidence by plying them with alcohol and giving them cigarettes at house parties, and offering them flirtatious attention.”
He said: “Both girls became conditioned to having regular sexual intercourse with the same male.”
Sigiyo paid for taxis and once the girls had accepted these offerings, Sigiyo and Houphouet demanded the girls give them sex in return.
Sigiyo and Houphouet raped the girls multiple times. The second victim described being raped two to three times a week by Sigiyo, and on one occasion woke up to find him attempting to rape her.
The first victim told NCA investigators how Houphouet was also “possessive” and had verbally abused her before raping her in an act of revenge, after finding Brzozwski – his lodger – having sex with her at one of the parties.
The girl was also raped by Sigiyo.
Specially trained officers from Operation Stovewood – the NCA’s investigation into historic allegations of sexual abuse in Rotherham – contacted the women, who are both now in their 20s, after identifying they were potentially victims. The women subsequently confirmed the horrific abuse they had endured.
The convictions are the latest following the National Crime Agency’s investigation into child sexual sexploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, which is called Operation Stovewood.
It was set up in the wake of the landmark Jay Report which found in 2014 that at least 1,400 girls were abused by gangs of men of mainly Pakistani heritage in Rotherham between those dates.
The NCA says Stovewood is the single largest law enforcement operation of its kind undertaken in the UK, and has identified more than 1,100 children involved in the exploitation between 1997 and 2013 – almost all girls.
A man crosses a road in inclement weather in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, North England, on October 6 (Image: AFP/Getty Images)
Senior Investigating Officer Kath Blain said: “This is one of the most harrowing cases I have investigated. Sigiyo and Houphouet lured two vulnerable girls to parties where they kept the children intoxicated so they could abuse them in the worst ways.
“Brzozwski contributed to their suffering, including by having sex with one of the girls who he knew was a child and vulnerable.
“The victims have shown extraordinary bravery in reporting their abuse. What happened to them can never be undone, but I hope the verdicts today will at least give them a sense that their abusers have been held to account and justice has been done.
“The National Crime Agency continues to pursue justice for numerous other people who we have identified were abused as children. I really encourage anyone who was abused as a child to report it to the police.”
Sexual abuse can be reported to police in person or by calling 101. Police officers specially trained to investigate such cases are ready and waiting to help victims.
Martin McRobb, Specialist Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “These defendants preyed on vulnerable young girls who they knew they could groom with alcohol and gifts with the sole aim of repeatedly sexually exploiting them.
“The victims in this case are now adults but they have had to live with the trauma caused by the vile and serious sexual offences committed against them in their youth.
“We know it can be difficult to talk about such abuse, and I would like to extend my thanks to the victims for the courage and fortitude they showed in coming forward and giving evidence against these men.
“The Crown Prosecution Service will continue to work closely with law enforcement partners to support all victims of child sexual abuse as we relentlessly pursue justice on their behalf.”
Houphouet and Sigiyo are due to be sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday. Brzozwski will be sentenced on 14 April at the same court.
