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| Eccles couple sentenced for trafficking servant girl | Eccles couple sentenced for trafficking servant girl |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A couple who trafficked a 10-year-old girl to the UK who was repeatedly raped and kept as a servant for nearly a decade have been jailed. | A couple who trafficked a 10-year-old girl to the UK who was repeatedly raped and kept as a servant for nearly a decade have been jailed. |
| Ilyas and Tallat Ashar brought the girl, who is deaf, from Pakistan and kept her at their home in Eccles, Salford, where she slept in the cellar. | Ilyas and Tallat Ashar brought the girl, who is deaf, from Pakistan and kept her at their home in Eccles, Salford, where she slept in the cellar. |
| Ilyas Ashar, 84, who was found guilty of 13 counts of rape, was jailed for 13 years at Manchester Crown Court. | |
| Tallat Ashar, 68, convicted of benefit fraud and trafficking, got five years. | |
| Police said the pair claimed thousands of pounds of benefits in the girl's name, while she was made to clean and cook at several houses belonging to the family. | |
| The girl, now in her 20s, was found in the "sparse, cold and damp" cellar in 2009 by trading standards staff investigating allegations of illegal activity. | |
| Ilyas Ashar was also found guilty of benefit fraud and trafficking. | |
| 'Unpleasant and manipulative' | |
| Judge Peter Lakin, sentencing, said the couple had not shown any remorse. | |
| He said: "You Ilyas Ashar and you Tallat Ashar did not treat this girl as a human being. To you she was merely an object to be used, abused and cast aside at will. | |
| "You took full advantage of her extreme vulnerability. You exploited her physically, mentally and economically. | |
| "There was throughout a distasteful undercurrent of violence and intimidation. All that she had in her life was the love of her family and her own human dignity - you two took that away from her, you consigned her to a life of misery and degradation." | |
| He added: "You are deeply unpleasant, highly manipulative and dishonest people." | |
| Details of the victim's ordeal only emerged after she was taught sign language, enabling her to be interviewed by police. | |
| The couple's daughter, Faaiza Ashar, 46, was given a 12-month community order with 300 hours of unpaid work after she was found guilty of benefit fraud. |