Five in court in Nottingham facing 36 child grooming charges

Five men have appeared in court to face 36 charges of child grooming.

Hamza Shazad, 25, Ansar Ahmed, 29, Mohammed Saeed Ahmed, 20, Waqar Akhtar, 26 and Waqas Akhtar, 24, were granted conditional bail at Nottingham Magistrates' Court.

The court heard the charges related to three girls, two aged under 16 and one aged under 18.

The men were told the next hearing will take place at Nottingham Crown Court on 5 December.

• Mr Shazad, of Ewart Road, Forest Fields, Nottingham, faces 11 charges, including two counts of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image portraying a sex act with an animal
• Ansar Ahmed, of Radford Road, Nottingham, faces six charges including one count of meeting a girl under 16 following grooming and causing a girl to engage in sexual activity
• Mohammed Saeed Ahmed, of Vale Crescent South, Nottingham, faces 11 charges including one count of raping a girl
• Waqar Akhtar, of Glentworth Road, Nottingham, faces two charges: one of taking away a child in care and one of removing a child under 16 from a person who had lawful responsibility for them
• Waqas Akhtar, of no fixed abode, faces six charges including two of engaging in sexual activity with a girl

No pleas have yet been entered in the case.