An imam who subjected his young pupils to over 100 physical assaults at a mosque in Rochdale has been jailed for 17 months.
Abdul Rauf, 51, was said to have displayed ‘Dickensian’ methods of teaching at a mosque on Crawford Street, where he bullied and tormented children.
Rauf, of Sussex Street, Rochdale, was sentenced at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court on Monday after earlier pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and 20 offences of common assault.
The court heard that the father-of-five would slap, kick and push the boys he was teaching.
The scale of the imam’s offending was not revealed until one of the victims told a teacher at his school that he and another boy had been assaulted at his local mosque.
Over 40 hours of CCTV was reviewed by Greater Manchester Police officers and the footage revealed 109 assaults perpetrated by Rauf. [Manchester Evening News] Read more
