A TEENAGE girl told a jury she did not realise her friend was being raped because she had been “brainwashed” by their alleged abusers.

Yesterday a complainant in the trial of seven young men accused of sexual exploitation in Banbury spent a third day giving evidence.

Along with seven other teenage girls she alleges she was groomed and abused between 2011 and 2013, when she was aged between 13 and 15 years old.

Prosecution barrister Stuart Trimmer QC said the group was known as ‘BB or B2’ and organised parties for under 18s to identify their victims.

They are: Ahmed Hassan-Sule, 21, of Glyndebourne Gardens; Said Saleh, 20, of Orchard Way; Mohamed Saleh, 21, of Orchard Way; Takudzwa Hova, 21, of Broughton Road; Kagiso Manase, 26, of Warwick Road; Alexandru Nae, 19, of Broome Way; and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons.

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Mark Gatley, the barrister for Nae, asked the girl about her claim that his client had raped another girl while she was in the room.

Mr Gatley asked: “There was no screaming, no crying, nothing of that nature?”

The witness said: “She was just quiet and just looking at the ceiling, she was blank.”

The barrister said: “I want to suggest to you that if you thought she was being raped you would have helped her.”

She told him: “They made me think it was normal, they brainwashed me to make me think it was normal, what was happening.”

The defendants deny a total of 26 charges, including 19 counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, three counts of rape and two counts of sexual assault.

The trial continues at Oxford Crown Court.


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