Eight arrested in hunt for absconded sex offenders

Eight people have been arrested as police search for two convicted sex offenders who absconded before their trial began.

Brothers Fayaz and Imtiaz Ahmed, aged 45 and 62, were convicted of raping a girl in Keighley in the 1990s, when she was 13 or 14.

They were jailed in their absence last month for seven-and-a-half years and nine years respectively. They fled and were believed to be abroad.

West Yorkshire Police confirmed on Wednesday that six men and two women, aged between 26 and 76, had been arrested in Keighley, Shipley and the Nelson area of Lancashire, on suspicion of assisting an offender.

Det Ch Insp Vicky Greenbank of Bradford District Police said: "Our focus remains on ensuring that two serious sexual offenders are located and apprehended so that justice is served.

"Extensive inquiries remain ongoing to locate Fayaz and Imtiaz and we are working with our partners the Crown Prosecution Service and National Crime Agency to find them."

The brothers were sentenced in their absence at Bradford Crown Court on 17 January, alongside Ibrar Hussain, 47, who did appear.

Hussain was jailed for six-and-a-half years.

The three men were sentenced following a series of trials involving eight men and two victims.

Earlier this month, Keighley and Ilkley MP Robbie Moore wrote to the Attorney General to complain about the sentences handed to all eight men.

He said: "These men committed horrific crimes: rape, exploitation, and the sustained abuse of two 13- and 16-year-old girls in our town.

"They received pathetically short sentences, which have finally been deemed weak enough to be challenged under the Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) Scheme."

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