Iranian sex gang leaders who groomed and abused 14-year-old girl 'fear execution' if they are deported after 33 year total prison sentence

Mohammed Rostami, 37, of The Renown, Shoebury, and Mehdi Zare, 32, of Lupin Drive, Chelmsford, were found guilty after a trial of abusing the girl over several years and supplying her with drugs.

Another man, Amin Kaveh, 35, also of The Renown in Shoebury, was jailed for a total of ten years for his role in supplying the victim, another teenager and a young woman with drugs, as well as for a leading role in an Essex-wide drugs conspiracy. 

The gang were convicted in December after an eight-week trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Sentencing the men, Judge Patricia Lynch called their crimes “abhorrent” and said they treated their victim “like a piece of meat”.

She said: “Ten years ago, because she was a troubled child she would have had no voice. Nobody would have listened to her and nobody would have believed her.

“But it’s because she was a troubled child that she was so vulnerable. She was easy prey.

“Sexual activity with a child is abhorrent but what’s more abhorrent is the grooming with drugs, inducing cocaine addiction, and then pimping that child out to other men with the same proclivities.”

Gareth Hughes, mitigating for Zare, said deportation proceedings started against his client following a separate conviction for drugs offences in 2015.

He said: “These sort of offences involving sexual activity with children are a capital offence in Iran. So if he is to be deported at some stage his future is really precarious.

“That’s something that he will have to live with. It’s a fact that is causing him considerable fear.”

The teenage victim met Rostami when he worked in a pizza shop in Duke Street, Chelmsford in 2006. He offered her free pizza and asked her to be his girlfriend. The pair ended up having sex in his car and on numerous other occasions.

Rostami deliberately got her hooked on cocaine and paid her with drugs in return for her agreeing to have sex with dozens of other Iranian men.
He passed her to Zare a few years later when he met his future wife.

He continued the pattern of abuse, even taking her to a loft space above CM Pizza in Duke Street for sex.

The court was read a statement from the victim who said the men “took away my innocence” and deserved long prison sentences.

She said: “By the time they get out I want for me and my family to have moved on with our lives.

“I don’t want another child to go through what I and my family have gone through for the last ten years.

“After doing something like this, how can they call themselves human beings?”

Rostami was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child; one count of causing or inciting sexual exploitation of a child; supplying a controlled drug of class A to another; supplying a controlled drug of class B to another.

The jury was discharged after failing to reach a verdict on one count of rape so the offence will lie on file.

Zare was found guilty of one count of sexual activity with a child; arranging or facilitating sexual exploitation of a child; supplying a class A drug to another; three counts of supplying a class B drug to another.

He was cleared of two counts of sexual activity with a child.

Amin Kaveh was found guilty of supplying a controlled cannabis and admitted a further two counts of supplying drugs before the trial.

He was cleared of one count of sexual assault; three counts of rape; causing or inciting prostitution for gain.

A charge of controlling prostitution for gain relating to a 16-year-old girl was dismissed during the trial.

The victim and her family were in court for the hearing, and breathed a sigh of relief as the pair were handed long sentences.

Addressing Zare, Judge Lynch said: “Although you didn’t groom her and get her addicted you were aware that she had been groomed and you were aware that she was being used like a piece of meat.

“You dealt with her as a commodity not a human being and not the child that she was.”

The victim and her family were in court for the hearing, and breathed a sigh of relief as the pair were indeed handed long sentences.

Rostami was jailed for a total of 15 years for the sexual offences, plus another six years for his admitted part in a seperate drugs conspiracy. The sentences are consecutive, meaning he will serve a total of 21 years.

Zare was jailed for a total of 12 years for the sexual offences. He was not part of the drugs conspiracy.

Amin Kaveh was found guilty of supplying cannabis and admitted a further two counts of supplying drugs before the trial.

He was cleared of one count of sexual assault; three counts of rape and causing or inciting prostitution for gain.

A charge of controlling prostitution for gain relating to a 16-year-old girl was dismissed during the trial.

Kaveh was jailed for a total of one year for the drugs offences, however, he was found guilty at a previous trial of a conspiracy to supply mephedrone, alongside Rostami and two other men.

He was jailed for ten years for his role, making a total of ten years.

Drug addict ‘peddled filth’ across Essex and beyond

A DRUG addict who “peddled filth” across Essex and beyond, supplying drugs to teenage girls who were being abused, has been jailed for ten years.

Amin Kaveh, 35, of The Renown in Shoebury, was a key figure in a network that supplied mephedrone - also known as Dolly and Miaow-Miaow - to users and dealers in the region.

Mohammed Rostami, 37, also of The Renown, in Shoebury, was jailed for six years for his part - to run consecutively with a 15 year sentence for child sex offences.

Rostami admitted the drugs matters last year but Kaveh denied them, standing trial with another man. He was found guilty.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard Kaveah was “up to his neck in it” but “a mess” throughout the entire offending period.

Oliver Renton, mitigating, said he confessed to friends that he was “snorting every day” and believed mephedrone would kill him.

He said: “His lifestyle was one of a lowlife. He knew it was hurting other people, he was destroying other people’s health, finances and trust in him.”

But Judge Patricia Lynch said even though Kaveh was a hopeless drug and gambling addict, he still managed to run a significant drugs empire.

Significantly, one of his customers included a 16-year-old prostitute working in Southend for the Girls 4 You agency. Two men were jailed last year for their roles in the agency following a separate trial.

A charge that Kaveh controlled her for prostitution was dismissed during the sex abuse trial.

John King, mitigating for Rostami, said he was “not wealthy” and did not live the lifestyle of a big time drug dealer.

Judge Lynch said: “With drugs, there are many hundreds and thousands of victims.

“You have peddled filth onto the streets where it causes harm, corruption and the sexual exploitation of children.

“You were running a 24/7 operation, supplying absolute filth all over the county and further. Also, you were supplying it to children. You didn’t care you supplied it to.”

The drugs conspiracy lasted from April 15, 2010 - when the drug was made illegal - to April 4, 2015.

Police found £10,000 worth of mephedrone at the Shoebury flat, plus more drugs and bulking agents at seperate addresses in Braintree and Chelmsford.

Asadollah Zare, 40, of Cowpar Mews, Braintree, admitted the conspiracy halfway through a trial and was jailed for four years. Ebrahim Zare, 42, also of Cowpar Mews, Braintree, pleaded not guilty but was convicted and jailed for two years.

Speaking after the hearing, Det Sup Mark Hall, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: "The sentences handed out today and the judge’s sentencing remarks reflect the gravity of the criminal offending in this case and the impact it had upon the victim.

"Her victim impact statement, which was read in court, makes clear the devastating effect these defendants had on a vulnerable child who was targeted, groomed and given drugs, before then being sexually exploited by both the defendants and other men. 

"I hope that these convictions and the sentences will enable those affected to move forward with their lives.

"The conspiracy to supply drugs, which was also subject of sentence today, reflected a long running, organised and widespread criminal enterprise, which saw drugs distributed across Chelmsford and south Essex.

"Rostami and Kaveh were motivated by greed. They supplied drugs to children and in peddling this filth onto our streets I have no doubt they have damaged lives and caused untold misery.

"There is no greater priority for Essex Police than to protect those who are vulnerable or exploited and to bring to justice the criminals who target and take advantage of them.

"These sentences represent the conclusion of a complex and long running investigation and I pay tribute firstly to the courage of the victims and witnesses and also to the dedication and professionalism of all those who have worked tirelessly on this case.”