IT DID not take much to persuade the police a crime had not been committed, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

The jury was told a young girl’s “delinquent behaviour” made her an “ideal candidate” for the child prostitution gang as she was unlikely to be believed by police.

Prosecutor Noel Lucas said the girl, described as Girl 3, was chosen as she was “unlikely to be believed”, adding: “It did not take much for the police to be persuaded a crime had not been committed.” He was speaking after the jury heard that in 2006 the girl told police she had been raped, beaten and drugged at the Nanford Guest House in Iffley Road. Photographs were taken of her injuries and the room. But Mr Lucas said the girl was “easy to manipulate”.

He said: “Even when severely assaulted and raped, it did not take much to persuade her to abandon the allegations. In this way, even when police were called to incidents involving her, no action was taken at the time.”

The jury has also heard this week that in 2006, a 14-year-old girl told police she had been held against her will at an address in Cowley Road.

In 2005, the girl’s mum picked her up from a police station and found blood in her jeans.

And yesterday the court heard one girl had told a member of school staff and a police officer in 2008 that she had been raped.

Another girl, aged 14, told police in 2006, that she had had sex “with a number of Asian males.”