Raheelah Dar is beginning a
lengthy prison sentence today after being convicted of the “isolating” and
“manipulating” abuse of the girl several years ago.
The Middle-aged woman has
been jailed for seven years for carrying out a string of s*x offences against a
young girl following the failure of an arranged marriage.
The 43-year-old denied all
of the charges but was found guilty of three counts of indecent assault and two
counts of indecency with a child by unanimous verdicts in a trial in June of
this year.
Prosecutor Christine
Egerton told Teesside Crown Court that the string of assault were carried out
in an “abuse of trust”.
The court heard that Dar,
then aged 26, began to groom and abuse the young girl following the failure of
her first arranged marriage when she found herself living back with her parents
in Middlesbrough.
The victim, who is now in
her early 20s, read her victim impact statement to the court from the witness
stand.
She said: “As a result of
the abuse I suffered as a child, I have been left feeling isolated and unable
to engage with people.
“I find it very difficult
to trust anybody. Physical contact such as a simple hug can bring on severe
panic attacks.”
She went on to tell the
court that she struggles to maintain friendships as people cannot understand
her mental health episodes and she even had to drop out of university as her
grades had dropped significantly due to her stress.
She added: “I love my
family immensely but I was unable to relate to them because they didn’t know
what I had suffered.
“I felt isolated from the
community I was brought up in as the topic of child abuse is taboo and is kept
behind closed doors. I was left feeling segregated.”
Alison Pryor, defending,
told the court that Dar had suffered with mental health issues throughout her
life which had worsened due to two failed marriages and the death of her
daughter in 2008.
Ms Pryor told the court
that as a practising Muslim woman who has been convicted of these offences
against someone of the same s*x, she has been shunned by her community and
urged Mr Recorder Tim Roberts QC to consider a punishment that did not involve
a prison sentence.
She said: “The shame that
this has brought and will bring upon Miss Dar and her family cannot be
underestimated.
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