Kamran Ilyas, 38, and Kamar Ilyas, 39, were convicted of five sexual offences against one victim while Amar Ilyas, 41, was convicted of 20 offences including rape against five victims
Amar Ilyas travelled to Pakistan while he was on bail, the NCA said(Image: National Crime Agency )
A man who “remorselessly terrorised” girls in Sheffield raping vulnerable girls as young as 12 fled to Pakistan. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison in his absence.
On Monday his brothers appeared in court and were jailed over the sexual abuse of one victim who was aged between 12 and 14 when they groomed her. Kamar Ilyas was jailed for 10 years and Kamran Ilyas for three years.
Their older brother, Amar Ilyas, 41, who used the nickname Killer, used a gun and threats of gang rape to coerce girls he abused almost 20 years ago. The Judge in the case is now calling on authorities to use “all means” to bring him back to the UK to face his 27 year jail term after he fled to Pakistan.
Judge Hampton said he “took the coward’s route and fled”. He said: “He continues to try and manipulate the proceedings from abroad, having his counsel espouse his good work for the community whilst simultaneously cowering from these proceedings in a different jurisdiction.”
Amar Ilyas, 41, was convicted of 20 offences including rape against five victims. Kamar Ilyas, 39, was convicted of one offence of rape of a child under 13 and two offences of sexual activity with a child. Kamran Ilyas, 38, was convicted of two offences of sexual activity with a child.
All three men, from Sheffield, were arrested in 2020 and charged in 2023 after an investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Officers from Operation Stovewood, the NCA’s investigation into systemic child sexual abuse and grooming in Rotherham, contacted a possible victim in 2018. The woman, who is now in her 30s, told officers she had been groomed and raped by Kamar, and then sexually abused by Amar and Kamran, between 2004 and 2008, at locations across Sheffield.
While he was aged between 17 and 18 years old, Kamar encouraged the 12-year-old victim to meet him at locations around Sheffield where he sexually abused and raped her, the trial heard.
Kamar then introduced the girl to his brother, Amar, who raped the her on a weekly basis for three years, the NCA said. The woman told investigators she had been frightened of him and feared he might harm her family, after he showed her a handgun he kept in his car.
Detectives were able to identify four further women who reported being abused by Amar when they were teenagers or young adults. The trial heard how threatened his victims with gang rape to coerce others he abused, as well as biting one girl and holding up a spanner while attacking her in a car.
Judge Hampton told the defendants: “Your victims were targeted, sexualised and, in some cases, subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature.”
And the judge added: “They were naive and young, reaching adolescence and susceptible to the attention that was given to them. Some were groomed, some coerced and intimidated and some violently raped.”
One victim read a statement in court and said that the three men “stole her childhood”. The woman said: “What they did to me didn’t end when the abuse stopped. It’s shaped every year of my life since.”
In a statement read to the court, another victim said: “No child should ever have to go through what I did.”
And, in a further read statement, a third victim said: “I am a survivor and you are a coward.” A fourth complainant said: “I hope you go to hell for what you did to me.”
More than 50 people have been convicted after investigations under Operation Stovewood, which the NCA says is the largest law enforcement operation of its kind in the UK.
Stovewood has identified more than 1,100 children involved in exploitation between 1997 and 2013, and previous estimates have put its cost at about £90 million.
