One of two brothers who led the UK’s most notorious sex grooming gang that targeted girls as young as 13 hopes to be freed after less than 12-years in jail

One of the two brothers who ran Britain’s most notorious sex grooming gang, which targeted girls as young as 13, has faced a parole hearing and hopes to be released after less than 12 years in prison.

Mubarek Ali, then 29, and his brother Ahdel ‘Eddie’ Ali, 24, led the gang of seven men, who operated in Telford, Shropshire, and preyed on 100 young girls between 2006 and 2009.

The city was a center of abuse, with as many as a thousand girls, some as young as eleven, falling victim to sex gangs over a forty-year period.

Over a three-year period, the Ali brothers’ gang targeted schoolgirls whom they controlled as child prostitutes by providing them with alcohol, food and money.

The Ali brothers were found guilty in 2012 of numerous crimes against four girls aged 13 to 17, including rape, sexual activity with a child, inciting and controlling child prostitution and trafficking children for sex.

Mubarek Ali was jailed for 14 years and Ahdel Ali was sentenced to 18 years in prison after an eight-week trial at Stafford Crown Court.

Mubarek was automatically released halfway through his sentence in 2017, but was sent back to prison just under a year later after breaching his license conditions.

His brother Ahdel was first released at the end of 2020, halfway through his 18-year prison sentence. But he was recalled to prison just seven months later for breaching his license conditions, allegedly in relation to the use of a mobile phone.

MailOnline can reveal that Ahdel, now 35, had a parole hearing in December 2023 based on prison documents and the decision was to keep him in prison. In two years he will be eligible for a new profession.

As for Mubarek, now 40, his new call-up will be his third since being recalled. The panel at its second meeting in May 2022 ruled that it could find ‘no evidence to indicate that his level of risk to others had decreased.

They were “not satisfied” that Mubarek Ali was suitable for release, according to a document outlining the decision.

A Parole Board spokesperson said: ‘We can confirm that Mubarek Ali’s parole review has been referred to the Parole Board by the Secretary of State for Justice and follows standard processes.

‘Decisions made by the Parole Board focus solely on the risk an inmate might pose to the public if released, and whether that risk is manageable in the community.

‘A panel will carefully examine a wide range of evidence, including details of the original crime and any evidence of change in behaviour, and examine the damage caused and the impact the crime has had on the victims.

“Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead-up to an oral hearing.

‘During the hearing, evidence may be given from witnesses such as probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison and personal statements from the victim.

‘It is standard practice for the prisoner and witnesses to be questioned at length during the hearing, which often lasts a full day or more. A parole review is conducted thoroughly and with the utmost care. Protecting the public is our first priority.”

During the brothers’ trial, the court heard that the two men systematically groomed young girls in such a way that they could ultimately sexually exploit them for their own gain and gratification.

The Ali brothers, both from Wellington, Telford, denied a total of 24 crimes allegedly committed against four girls between March 2008 and December 2009.

The court was told the men, who were married, had described their victims as ‘w****s’, ‘s***s’ and ‘s**ts’.

After seeing the convicted men, Detective Chief Inspector Neil Jamieson, senior investigating officer at West Mercia Police, said: ‘We are pleased with the sentences handed down by the court today and are pleased that these two men will now serve significant custodial sentences.

‘This is one of a number of high-profile trials that have taken place in Britain recently and we are pleased with the convictions in this case.

“Ahdel Ali and Mubarek Ali targeted these girls for their vulnerability and then systematically groomed them in such a way that they could ultimately sexually exploit them for their own gain and gratification.”

Five other men from the Telford area pleaded guilty to the charges before the start of their trial and were given prison sentences of between two and a half and seven years.

The operation to snare the sex abusers, ‘Operation Chalice’, was one of the largest in the history of West Mercia Police.

A team of up to fifty officers worked on the investigation to bring the men to justice.

In 2018, one of the victims of abusers in Telford spoke anonymously on Good Morning Britain to Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid about their ordeal.

According to the Home Office, Telford has the third highest rate of child abuse in Britain, just behind Blackpool and Rotherham.

The woman, called ‘Holly’, described how she was sold for sex ‘countless times’.

She said: ‘I was abused from the ages of 14 to 18, my abuse started with boys my own age who then sold my phone number to older men.

‘And from then on it was basically a whirlwind of rapes every day. I went to the doctors and the adolescent sexual health clinic to get the morning-after pill, probably twice a week, and no one even questioned anything.

‘I’ve had two abortions and still nothing was said to me. I sat in cars stopped by the police and they didn’t ask me why I was there with a much older man… it got to the point where I tried to commit suicide, and still no one asked me any questions about what what was going on in my life and why I reacted the way I reacted.’

Holly added: ‘The way I got out was to actually leave Telford and isolate myself from my friends and family and everyone else I knew.

“The reason it took so long was because the men blackmailed me and said they were going to rape my relatives or burn down my house.”

When asked by Susanna Reid how many men she thinks are responsible for the abuse she has suffered, ‘Holly’ said: ‘I couldn’t even put a number on it, there are so many.

“The biggest abusers, I would say seven, but I was sold every day, countless times, for four years.”

The authority in charge of the town, Telford and Wrekin Council, acted on only half of the warnings they received, it emerged at the time ‘Holly’ spoke out.

In three years they received 715 referrals for child sexual exploitation, but only 324 of the cases were referred.

Authorities had been warned about abuse ten years before Operation Chalice.

But authorities were alerted to the abuse a decade before Operation Chalice.

Only 303 were passed on to the Children Abused Through Exploitation team, according to figures released under freedom of information laws.