A YOUNG woman said it had been “painful” giving evidence at the Oxford child prostitution ring trial, but did it as she felt she was “finally being believed”.

The witness, known as Girl 1, overcame illness to take the stand and finish her evidence after six days at the Old Bailey.

She claims she was raped and sold for sex by Kamar Jamil and brothers Akhtar and Anjum Dogar, between 2004 when she was 12, and 2007 when she was 15.

Earlier, the court heard the witness had sex encounters with “hundreds”. Prosecutor Noel Lucas asked her why she had decided to give evidence after speaking to police last year.

She dropped a rape claim against Akhtar Dogar in 2006.

She said: “In all these years when I’ve dealt with many, many professionals, it was the first time I felt I was being believed and the first time someone was going to do something about what had been going on in Oxford for a long, long time.

“An issue I believe may have been covered up, well not covered up but people were not doing their jobs properly and reading between the lines, and many, many people I think have suffered this kind of abuse.

“I decided to go ahead with it because I felt like I was finally being believed about what was happening to me “I want to see justice.

“Some pretty awful things happened to me in my childhood.

“At the time I didn’t feel anyone would believe me and nothing was done about it. There was a lot of self doubt.

“I wanted to see the people who did that to me, and potentially other people, punished for it.”

She told the jury she had found it “difficult” to give evidence and recollect what had happened. She said: “It’s been really quite painful.”

And she said she had to pretend it had happened to someone else, adding: “If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

Lee Karu, defending Anjum Dogar, told the witness his client had only met her half a dozen times.

She claims he and the gang took her to “grotty” places to have sex with strangers.

But Mr Karu said: “He never had any sexual encounters with you.”

But the witness, now in her 20s, said: “That’s not true.”

She also claims Assad Hussain, who she picked out in an ID procedure last year, abused her.

Mark George, defending Hussain, asked her if she could have confused his client with one of the many Asian men she encountered.

But she said: “Out of all these hundreds of men, for whatever reason, that face stood out.”

Earlier she had said: “The minute I saw him, I 100 per cent recognised him as someone who had sex with me.”

The court also heard from Pc Brent Jackson, who arrested Akhtar Dogar in September 2006 after finding him with Girl 1. She said he raped her.

In Pc Jackson’s statement, he said she had told him: “I hate them and the things they do to me.”

The nine defendants deny all charges. The trial continues.