A baker whose customers include Premier League soccer players was imprisoned for keeping a deaf and mute girl in a basement as a slave.
Tallat Ashar’s baked goods have attracted a large following on social media, with thousands of ‘likes’ on TikTok and Instagram.
The catering firm has been catering to celebrities, working at events for the children of Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes, defender Raphaël Varane and former team-mate Paul Pogba, according to the MailOnline.
The company was established in 2021 alongside her daughter, who was listed as a secretary.
It has since been revealed that in 2014, the influencer baker Ashar was jailed for six years after she and her husband Ilyas smuggled a ten-year-old girl from Pakistan to Manchester, where she was subjected to horrific abuse.
The child was concealed in the ‘sparse, cold, damp’ cellar of the Ashar’s family home, and was repeatedly assaulted by Mr Ashar as well as being instructed to cook and clean.
The couple also managed to collect thousands of pounds in the victim’s name.
The victim was rescued from the horrific abuse in 2009, but as she had never gone to school, she was unable to speak any English.
The child was taught sign language which allowed her to provide a statement to police which led to the Ashars' conviction.
Mr Ashar was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2013 after being found guilty of 13 counts of assault as well as benefit fraud and trafficking, at the age of 84.
Tallat Ashar was found guilty of benefit fraud and trafficking and sentenced to five years.
For charges of false imprisonment, however, jurors had failed to reach a verdict.
Judge Peter Larkin said the couple viewed the girl as ‘merely an object to be used, abused and cast aside at will’.
The Court of Appeal then increased the couples’ sentences to 15 years and six years respectively.
After she was released, documents reveal that Mrs Ashar set up Sugared Luxe in 2021.
She now owns more than three-quarters of the issued shares, and is listed at Companies House as the sole director.
Her daughter Faazia is believed to be the one that actually bakes and decorates the cakes.
Tallat Ashar’s role is ‘not customer-facing’, Faazia told the Mail Online.
‘She’s not customer-facing. The case didn’t involve poisoning – is she not allowed to do anything else with her life or show remorse?’, the daughter said.
Faaiza Ashar was ordered to complete a 12-month community order with unpaid work in 2013, after being convicted of benefit fraud relating to the girl who her parents abused.
A judge said Faaiza, who was 46 at the time, had been ‘manipulated’ by her parents.
.
