Seven men have been handed lengthy prison terms for grooming and sexually abusing teenage girls in Rochdale between 2001 and 2006.

The gang’s ringleader, 65-year-old Mohammed Zahid, was jailed for 35 years for charges including the rape of two schoolgirls.

The judge said the highly vulnerable girls had been “abused, degraded and then discarded” by the men and had been “seriously let down” by the authorities whose job it was to protect them.

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