Charges include a total of 12 rapes of girls as young as 14
17:03, 12 Nov 2025Updated 17:30, 12 Nov 2025
Bristol Magistrates Court
Allegations of a major child sexual exploitation ring in Bristol were made at the city’s magistrates court today (Wednesday), as seven young men were charged with a total of 44 offences including multiple rapes, sexual assaults, sexual exploitation and drugs supply to at least 11 teenage girls, the youngest of whom was just 14.
The seven are aged between 19 and 22 and live around Bristol, from Southmead and Westbury Park to Fishponds. Police said they were re-arrested yesterday, Tuesday, as part of an investigation dating back to April 2024.
On Wednesday (November 12) the seven appeared before district judge Lynn Matthews at Bristol Magistrates Court, and she told all seven the same thing – they would be remanded in custody to return to Bristol Crown Court for their first hearing in front of a crown court judge on December 17.
Four of the seven are charged with drugs offences that claim they were all ‘involved in the supply of’ ecstasy and either cannabis or cocaine to ‘multiple young girls’ between August 2022 and June 2024. Those four are also charged with offences that they ‘arranged or facilitated’ the sexual assaults or rapes of children – child sexual exploitation.
Six of the seven are charged with multiple rapes themselves, involving girls aged between 14 and 17, in Bristol between 2022 and 2024. Two are British nationals, two are Syrian nationals, one is Egyptian, one Iraqi and one Iranian.
Early on Wednesday, police revealed they had arrested and charged the seven, and named five of them. At their first court hearing later that day, the judge decided not to impose any ban on naming the last two defendants, who had been the subject of anonymity orders imposed by previous immigration tribunals. That meant there were no reporting restrictions on naming any of the seven.
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Mohamed Kurdi was the first to appear. The 21-year-old British national gave his address as a home in Satchfield Crescent in the Henbury area of north Bristol. He was told he faces two counts of rape, which both occurred in November 2022. He was also charged with two counts that he arranged the sexual exploitation and rape of a child under the age of 18 – in 2022 or 2023, and a second charge with a more specific date of November 2022.
Kurdi was the first of four defendants to also be charged with offences of supplying drugs between August 2022 and June 2024 – in his case cannabis and ecstasy.
The second to appear was Hussain Bashar, 19, from Wilton Close in Southmead. He is the only defendant to face just one charge – that between August 2023 and December 2023, he raped a girl who was under 16.
Wadie Sharif was the third to appear in the dock. The 21-year-old Syrian confirmed he was living in a flat in Blenheim Road, Westbury Park in Bristol, and required an interpreter to learn that he faces a total of six charges – one of raping a 15-year-old girl on April 5, 2023, two counts of attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl in November or December 2022 and three counts of sexual assault on a female in December 2022.
The fourth to appear was Sina Omari, a 20-year-old Iranian from Fishponds Road in Fishponds. He faces the most number of charges – 11. As well as two drugs charges, he faces two counts of raping a woman in October and November 2022. He was also charged with four counts of arranging or facilitating the rape of girls aged 15, 16 and 17 in 2023 and 2024, as well as a separate charge of ‘causing or inciting the sexual exploitation of a child’.
Omari was also charged with two counts of making indecent photographs or images of a child.
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Mohamed Arafe appeared alongside Omari in the dock. The Syrian national confirmed he is 19 and his home address was in Ludlow Close in St Pauls. He was the only defendant out of the seven not to be charged with rape.
Arafe was charged with the two drugs supply offences, and also with five counts of ‘arranging or facilitating’ the rapes of girls aged 15, 16 and 17, and told he faces a separate charge of ‘causing or inciting’ the sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old girl in Bristol in October 2023. He was also charged with one count of sexual assault on a 17-year-old girl in February 2024.
Ihab Al-Eisawi was the sixth to appear in the dock. The date of birth he gave District Judge Lynn Matthews indicates he is 22, and he confirmed his home as Madeline Road in the Fishponds area of Bristol.
Al-Eisawi was charged with two counts of rape in August and September 2022, and a third charge of sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl in November or December 2022.
The final defendant in the dock was Sardam Ahmed. The court registered the 19-year-old Iraqi’s address as HMP Bristol, and he was told he faces a total of nine charges. He faces four separate counts of rape in August 2023, November 2023 and in March or April 2024.
He also faces a charge of arranging or facilitating the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl in Bristol in February 2024, a charge of distributing indecent photographs of a child, and two counts of supplying cocaine and ecstasy over a period between August 2022 and June 2024.
All seven defendants confirmed their names and addresses and none of them formally entered pleas to any of the charges put to them. They were all remanded in custody to return to Bristol Crown Court on December 17.