Girl was ‘sold’ aged 11, drugged and raped by child sex ring, court told

Nine men deny 51 counts, including rape, trafficking and organising prostitution of girls between 11 and 15

A 14-year-old girl who went to the police after allegedly being beaten up and repeatedly raped by a member of a child sex trafficking ring was persuaded to drop her complaint by another girl who was “seeing” her attacker, a court heard today.

The jury in the trial of nine men alleged to have run the Oxford gang were also told of second alleged victim who, it is said, was made to have an illegal abortion after being impregnated by one of the defendants just after her twelfth birthday. The girl claims she was also beaten for falling pregnant.

The allegations form just a small part of the case outlined by the prosecution against the alleged child sex traffickers, who are standing trial at the Old Bailey on a total of 51 rape, sexual assault and drugs charges.

The court heard that in November 2006 the 14-year-old, one of six who have accused the men of a string of offences, was attacked, beaten and raped by Bassam Karrar before a neighbour called the police.

Noel Lucas QC, acting for the prosecution, said officers found her in the basement “extremely distressed, crying and shaking”. Mr Lucas said she told her attacker she was pregnant in a bid to stop the violence but this only incensed him further and he began shouting verbal abuse.

The girl told police she had been held against her will, raped and repeatedly smacked in the face. She also claimed her head had been held under a shower and that she had been injected with a drug, the court heard. But she later dropped the complaint.

Opening the prosecution’s case today, Mr Lucas QC described the shocking sexual abuse the men are alleged to have subjected the girls to over nearly eight years. He said that one of the girls says she was “sold” to a member of the gang by another man at the age of 11. She says she was then sexually groomed and raped until she was 15, as well as being injected with heroin.

Mr Lucas QC said the girl alleges that the defendant Mohammed Karrar told her he intended to make back the money he paid for her and later branded her with a hot piece of metal he had bent into an ‘M’ shape.

He told the court: “This brief summary of the very extensive and persistent abuse [the girl] suffered at the hands of Mohammed Karrar illustrates his view of her as something to be used and abused at will. He regarded her as his property. He showed her no regard.

The prosecution also described how the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, accuses two of the defendants when she was aged 11 – 15, of making arrangements and taking her “to various locations where other men paid [them] to sexually use and abuse her”.

The alleged sex trafficking ring was arrested by Thames Valley police early last year. Kamar Jamil, 27, Assad Hussain, 32, and Bilal Ahmed, 26 are standing trial. They are joined by two sets of brothers: Akhtar, 32, and Anjum Dogar, 30; and Mohammed, 38, and Bassam Karrar, 32. Also charged are Mohammed Hussain, 24, and Zeeshan Ahmed, 27.

On Tuesday, Mr Lucas QC told the jury: “The evidence will show that these men, sometimes acting in groups and at other times separately, targeted vulnerable young girls between the ages of 11 and 12 and up to 15.”

The nine defendants deny all of the charges. The case continues.