Sat urday 31 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •
National^23
Journalist complains to BBC
over Agnew’s abusive tweets
Rotherham
abuse case
judge berates
authorities
Jim Waterson
Media editor
The Test Match Special commentator
Jonathan Agnew is the subject of a for-
mal complaint to the BBC over a series
of abusive tweets he sent to a fellow
cricket writer. Agnew has deleted his
PA Media
The authorities were “totally ineff ec-
tual” or “wholly indiff erent” to the
plight of sexually exploited teenage
girls in Rotherham, a judge said as he
jailed fi ve men.
Aftab Hussain, 40, was sentenced
to 24 years in prison, and Abid Saddiq,
38, to 20 years by the judge at Sheffi eld
crown court, who described Saddiq as
a “ determined sexual predator”.
Masaued Malik, 35, was jailed for
fi ve years; Sharaz Hussain, 35, for four
years; and one man who cannot be
named for legal reasons was jailed for
10 years. Malik was told that his sen-
tence would follow on from a 15-year
term he is already serving.
Judge Michael Slater said that,
after sitting through the trial of the
fi ve men, he was “quite satisfi ed” that
Liew was using the “race card”, Agnew
replied: “Horrible Man. Seriously.”
Liew said he had no idea if the
complaint to the BBC had been dealt
with: “I would very much like him to
stop calling me a racist because that’s
defamatory – and it’s not true. I would
very much like him to leave me alone.”
Agnew, who is one of the BBC’s
highest earners on more than £170,000
a year, dismissed the claim and said
the comment was a case of mistaken
identity involving a cancer specialist
he knew. The BBC said it would not be
commenting on the latest incident,the “relevant authorities” were well
aware of the way vulnerable teenag-
ers in the South Yorkshire town were
being targeted.
Yesterday’s sentencing followed
the latest trial to arise out of Opera-
tion Stovewood – the massive National
Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into
the sexual exploitation of teenagers in
Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.
A total of 20 men have now been
convicted as a result of Operation
Stovewood, and the NCA has said it
believes 1,510 people were victims.
Slater praised the eight victims
mentioned in yesterday’s hearing,
including one who was in court for
the sentencing and who said in a
statement read aloud: “They took
my childhood away.” The judge said
the women should be praised for the
“incredible resolve and bravery” they
showed to bring the men to justice.
During the fi ve-week trial, the jury
heard that girls were targeted because
of their vulnerability and were given
alcohol and drugs before some were
raped by multiple men. Violence
was sometimes used to ensure they
complied.
Another man who cannot be named
for legal reasons, who was also found
guilty of off ences this week, will be
sentenced at a later date, as will a sev-
enth defendant, Mohammed Ashan,
who pleaded guilty to sexual off ences
at a previous hearing.while Liew has not been provided with
an update on any disciplinary process.
The pair fi rst clashed after Liew
wrote a column suggesting that jour-
nalists, including Agnew, were more
critical of the decision to call up Barba-
dos-born Joff ra Archer to the England
cricket team than they were of previ-
ous decisions to call up white players
born in South Africa and Australia.
“There’s an incendiary word you
could posit to describe all this, but
I’m not going to use it,” wrote Liew.
In response Agnew repeatedly sent
messages calling Liew a “cunt”.Twitter account after a series of late-
night tweets calling the Independent’s
Jonathan Liew a “racist”, in spite of
being warned by BBC bosses about his
behaviour towards the journalist.
In the tweets, posted at around
1am on Tuesday , Agnew called Liew
a “sad racist troll after clickbait”. In
a response to another user claiming▲ Clockwise from top left: Abid Saddiq, Aftab Hussain, Masaued Malik and
Sharaz Hussain were caught under Operation Stovewood PHOTOGRAPH: NCA/PA
▲ The broadcaster Jonathan Agnew
deleted his Twitter account this weekRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws