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A man who performed a “wedding” with a teenage minor in a faith-based ritual is one of a group of eight who were convicted for abuse charges targeting her.

The victim was manipulated and victimized by individuals beginning when she was 13 and that continued when she was in a Bradford children's home, court proceedings revealed.

The court learned the ceremony during the early 2000s involving the main perpetrator, included a social worker assigned to her even though facility employees fearing that she was a victim.

Zulqurnean, now 43, received a guilty verdict for sexual assault and further offenses and imprisoned in May to at least 18 years but it got extended to 23 years following an appeals court.

‘Organizational breakdown’

The victim commented: “This exceeded an isolated incident. It represented systemic failure and no one cared regarding my safety.

“I was wed to an abuser. What allows a minor to marry? Authorities permitted it,” she explained.

The victim reached out to news organizations in 2019 regarding her ordeal of abuse after seeing a different individual who harmed her, a co-defendant, in a television feature regarding child sexual exploitation.

The second defendant, mid-forties, who was already in prison for similar crimes during that period, was found guilty in court in June this year of sexual assault and indecent assault and is awaiting sentence.

Documentation showed accessed by news outlets care staff at the residence noted that the victim “was meeting individuals after hours and not reporting facility employees about where she had been”.

The victim said: “I was on a care order yet I received no protection, and the institutions that were meant to protect me facilitated the abuse.”

Official reports revealed the girl was reported missing over a hundred times from 2002 to 2004.

One caregiver testified in court that men using as many as 10 vehicles nightly were observed coming at the children's home and vehicle registration plates were reported to law enforcement each week.

The woman, who is granted lifetime anonymity, commented the effect of testifying was extremely damaging.

“After I reported, I wasn’t informed how it was going to diminish my mental health, how it would influence relationships with my family, how it would alter my cognitive state,” she noted.

“It seems I suffered additional distress compared to my childhood because I've lived it over and over again in my 30s with no respite.

“It resulted in emotional distress.”

‘Voices silenced’

David Greenwood, the victim's solicitor, denounced the conduct of social workers and police in that period, while the abuse occurred.

“Staff in that children's home were aware these serious crimes were being committed, affecting more than one individual and additional victims at the same time as well,” he stated.

“Intervention was required. The police should have been in there immediately and the victims possibly moved away from that place.”

The survivor mentioned additional residents at the children's home similarly spoke up concerning exploitation.

“Numerous victims were making complaints back then, I'm not the only one,” she explained.

“The women that have got justice during the past decade are just a snippet of those who were abused locally.

“There are so many victims whose voices were ignored.”

A police spokesperson stated that since the early 2010s, the force had “allocated resources to and improved” safety protocols and taken a “thorough and diligent strategy to exploring previous incidents”.

They said that multiple probes were still under way, stating: “Efforts made during the last ten years has led to numerous individuals currently serving long incarcerations.”

Local authority representative, leader of Bradford Council, commented it involved “major deficiencies in how local authorities and partners in our district acted at that time and we've apologised for that”.

“They did not protect the individual as required,” she noted.

Hinchcliffe stated what occurred were “looked at in depth” during an earlier review on abuse cases locally.

She said the results were included in the nationwide Independent Inquiry on abuse and recommendations had been acted on locally so that agencies would “enhance safeguarding {children in the here and now|minors