Bullfinch: Witness breaks down as she gives evidence (From Oxford Mail)

Bullfinch: Witness breaks down as she gives evidence

1:14pm Monday 28th January 2013 in News By Ben Wilkinson, Crime Reporter. Call me on (01865) 425427

A SCHOOL girl was scratched and choked by men who came to "grotty" homes to have sex with her, the Old Bailey heard today.

A young woman sobbed as she continued giving evidence at the trial of nine men charged with grooming, raping, and selling young teenage girls for sex in Oxford.

The witness, now in her 20s, claims Kamar Jamil and the Dogar brothers Akhtar and Anjum trafficked and sold her for sex from when she 12 in 2004 to when she was 15 in 2007. She also claims Assad Hussain abused her.

She told the court she had been burnt with cigarettes by the gang.

Known as Girl 1 as she cannot be named, the witness told the jury she was taken to "dilapidated" and "grotty" places by the defendants.

She said she would be told there would be a "party", but men from places such as Bradford and London would come to have sex with her.

She said: "I think it had already been predetermined that there would be a sexual element to the evening.

"I didn't want to have sex it was just something I felt like I had to do."

The witness said there was a "pack mentality". She said: "If one had had it they would encourage everybody to have it."

She also said "sexual" photographs were taken of her.

And she said after the "party" she would be left in the house alone, adding: "I was in a confused state of mind at the time. I would just spend the rest of the day just wandering around.

"All of it is just lost - that part of my life."

She said men would try to abuse her even if she had "passed out" from drink and drugs, adding: "I was emotionally and physically exhausted.

"They just thought they could do what they wanted with you so they would just carry on anyway."

She added: "How odd or disgusting I thought it was I just mentally shut down and did it."

The witness cried as she told the court a man she described as "big, fat, and sweaty" once made her urinate on him.

She said: "It was horrible. I didn't really understand what I was doing or the purpose of doing it."

And she said she would be hurt if she refused to have sex. The men would pull her hair, bend her fingers, and slap her, she said.

The witness said she would disappear from home for up to eight days and returned bruised and sometimes with cigarette burns.

She said she was not fed properly while away and went down to seven stone. Her mother described her as "skeletal", she said.

The nine defendants deny all the charges.

The trial continues.