Bullfinch trial day 8: Witness sobs as she tells of being choked (From Oxford Mail)

Bullfinch trial day 8: Witness sobs as she tells of being choked

10:00am Tuesday 29th January 2013 in News By Ben Wilkinson, Crime Reporter. Call me on (01865) 425427

A SCHOOLGIRL saw money changing hands after she was forced to have sex with “customers” who scratched and choked her, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

The witness, now in her 20s, told the jury she was taken to “grotty” houses to have sex with men who had travelled from as far away as Bradford and Leeds.

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

Known as Girl 1 as she cannot be named, she claims Kamar Jamil and the Dogar brothers Akhtar and Anjum raped, trafficked and sold her for sex from when she was 12 in 2004 to when she was 15 in 2007. She also claims Assad Hussain abused her.

Girl 1 described the men she did not know who had sex with her as “customers”.

She said: “I felt like I was being... was giving them a service almost.”

She said she saw cash changing hands and was sure it was for having sex with her.

The witness also said Jamil and the Dogar brothers would ask the men if they were happy and sexually satisfied.

She said: “They would say things like ‘see you again soon’.”

The young woman told the jury yesterday she would be told there would be a “party”, but men 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.”

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 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.

“I was not sure that physically my body could actually take it.”

The men would pull her hair, bend her fingers, and slap her if she refused, the court heard.

The witness said she would disappear from home for up to eight days and returned bruised, bloody 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.

• Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire County Council have a special confidential helpline for anyone concerned about a child who may be at risk of sexual exploitation. The police and council team are available to take calls from anyone with concerns about their children or children they know. The helpline number is 01865 266255.