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An individual who performed a “wedding” with a teenage girl in a faith-based ritual is one of a group of eight to have been convicted for sex crimes targeting her.

The young woman was manipulated as well as victimized by perpetrators starting at 13 and it persisted while she was in a local residential home, court proceedings revealed.

Jurors heard the “marriage” back in the early 2000s involving Raja Zulqurnean, was attended by a social worker assigned to her despite residential staff suspecting that she was a victim.

Zulqurnean, currently 43, was convicted for rape as well as further offenses and jailed in May for no less than 18 years but that was increased to 23 years following an appeals court.

‘Systemic failure’

The victim commented: “This went beyond a grooming case. This was an institutional scandal and no one cared for my wellbeing.

“I was married to someone who harmed me. How could a child marry? Authorities permitted it,” she added.

The woman reached out to media outlets during 2019 regarding what she endured of being sexually exploited following an encounter with another perpetrator, a co-defendant, within television feature about child sexual exploitation.

The second defendant, mid-forties, who was already in prison for sexual offences at the time of the report, received a verdict in court this past June of rape charges and abuse counts with sentencing pending.

In care documents seen by news outlets care staff at the children's home noted that the girl “was associating with individuals during nighttime without informing facility employees concerning her activities”.

The victim said: “I was under a care order but I wasn't protected at all, and the systems that were meant to protect me facilitated the abuse.”

Law enforcement documents showed the girl was reported missing over a hundred times from 2002 to 2004.

One caregiver informed the court that perpetrators using as many as 10 vehicles nightly were seen arriving the facility and license plate numbers were passed to police each week.

The individual, who is granted lifetime anonymity, commented the impact of giving evidence had been devastating.

“After I reported, nobody warned me the extent it would damage my well-being, the impact it would have on family connections, the effect on my cognitive state,” she explained.

“I believe I suffered additional distress beyond my youth since I relived it repeatedly in my 30s and I never got a break.

“It resulted in emotional distress.”

‘Voices silenced’

David Greenwood, the victim's solicitor, condemned the actions of authorities and officials back in the early 2000s, while the abuse occurred.

“Staff in that children's home knew these acts were happening, not just to this girl and additional victims during that period,” he commented.

“It should have been stopped. Authorities should have stepped in promptly and those affected should have been probably dispersed from the facility.”

The survivor stated additional residents at the children's home had also complained regarding abuse.

“Many individuals were reporting stuff back then, others experienced this too,” she noted.

“The women that have got justice in recent years are a small portion of the girls who were abused in the area.

“Many survivors who remain unheard.”

Law enforcement representatives said that from the early 2010s onward, the force had “heavily funded and improved” safety protocols adopting a “thorough and diligent strategy to exploring previous incidents”.

They said that many investigations were still under way, commenting: “Efforts made in recent years has produced hundreds of perpetrators receiving extended jail terms.”

Local authority representative, a local official, said there had been “serious failings regarding how local authorities and partners in our district acted back then and we've apologised for that”.

“They failed to safeguard the victim as they should have,” she noted.

She stated the survivor’s ordeal underwent “detailed review” as part of a previous assessment on abuse cases in the district.

She said the findings were fed into the nationwide Independent Inquiry on abuse and recommendations had been acted on locally allowing institutions to “improve protection for {children in the here and now|minors