Gang-rape victim's mother claims UK terror police ignored her warnings on Manchester bomber and friends

A photograph has emerged of Manchester arena bomber Salman Abedi sitting beside a rape convict as the mother of a teenage gang-rape victim claimed she had reported the gang to the UK terror police several times, but they ignored her warnings.

She also said that one of the gang members, Abdullahi Ahmed Jama Farah, was jailed in February 2016 for creating an Isis "communications hub" in his mother's house in Fallowfield.

Bilal Ahmed, who along with two of his friends had raped a schoolgirl after luring her to a hotel room during a game of hide and seek in 2013, was jailed in 2016 and later sentenced to nine years.

The woman from Cheshire said that Ahmed's friends had bullied and intimidated her and her family throughout the rape trial. She also said that she believes Abedi may have been among the mob who had intimidated them. She also suspected that Abedi could have been present at the hotel room when Ahmed and his friends brutally abused her 16-year-old daughter.

"The moment I heard [Abedi's] name, I just knew it. I just had a feeling that there would be a link," the woman reportedly said.

"They are all friends, they are all connected. Just last year I saw one of their cronies called Jama [Farah] was jailed for links to terrorism and his two cousins, two 'jihadi brides' are still in Syria apparently," she said, noting that she immediately contacted terror police after watching Jama's news on TV, but did not hear back from the police.

She added that she had checked the Facebook profiles of the boys and seen a "logo" that she thought was linked to Isis.

"To me this shows that they are clearly all linked and involved in something together. At the time it made me think that another one could go on to commit a terrorist act and Salman clearly has.

"But it makes me worry that there will be others that are out there that they knew who could do it again."

The woman said that the behaviour of Ahmed's friends at the trial showed that they were "all rotten to the core".

"They are all friends and they are ending up terrorists and rapists. I can't understand why the police can't follow it up.

"All of his friends were at the trial and many of them were intimidating me, shouting things, goading me and my husband. It was terrifying.

"They were all his friends so are you telling me that if Salman was his friend he wasn't there? He probably would have turned up.

"There must have been cameras at the court that they can check as I am sure he is one of them in that group. They see their strength in numbers so they all turned up for the gang.

"When my daughter was raped, Bilal had a group of friends who were present at the hotel but were not identifiable due to having their hoods up. He could even have been one of them," the woman was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying.