Tenth man part of Blackrod grooming gang convicted of sexual offences against girls under 16 handed 15 years
Ashley Darbyshire, the main offender in a Blackrod grooming gang, was sentenced to 15 years in prison (10 years in custody) for grooming, raping, and sexually assaulting underage girls between 2016-2018. He was convicted alongside three other men, with over 30 convictions among the group. The gang preyed on girls under 16, using social media, alcohol, and drugs to exploit them. The case came to light after a car crash involving one victim. The men showed no remorse in court.
Ashley Darbyshire, 28, of Bolton, will spend ten years behind bars after Liverpool Crown Court sentenced him to 15 years for grooming, raping and sexually assaulting under-age girls in Blackrod between 2016 and 2018. The judge ordered lifetime registration as a sex offender for the man police call the ringleader of a predator group that amassed more than 30 convictions.
The pattern of abuse began when Darbyshire, then 19, befriended a 13-year-old girl and introduced her to nine friends who “used and abused her at their disposal” for the next two years, prosecutors told the court. The men, aged 17 to 29 when the offences started, approached other girls under 16 through social-media messages and at a popular hang-out near the community centre, plying victims with drink and drugs and sending explicit images of themselves.
Most attacks occurred at a rented house in Blackrod where a 17-year-old member of the group lived with his father. The property became a squalid party den: doors were punched through, light bulbs smashed and corners used as toilets. The abuse surfaced only after a crash on 17 June 2018, when one defendant, drunk and clutching keys he had taken from the homeowner, sped round a bend with a 15-year-old passenger, slammed into parked cars and left the girl with a swollen eye. She first claimed she had fallen from bed, but friends alerted teachers, prompting her confession and the eventual police investigation.
Darbyshire was convicted of three rapes, 12 counts of sexual activity with a child, three counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and one of making indecent photographs. Brandon Harwood, 25, received a ten-year sentence with two-thirds custody for rape, attempted oral rape and sexual activity with a child, plus lifetime registration. Ross Corley, 30, was jailed for 28 months and placed on the register for ten years, while a fourth man received a 15-month suspended sentence, 100 hours of unpaid work and a ten-year registration. Sentencing of remaining defendants continues today.
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