AN OXFORD man made friends with a teenage girl on Facebook before he raped her in the early hours of New Year’s Day, a jury was told yesterday.

Sameer Tasib targetted his victim because he knew she was vulnerable, Reading Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Neil Moore said the victim – now aged 16 – was a “happy-go-lucky” young girl whose behaviour deteriorated after moving to an Oxford school.

Mr Moore said the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was described by her mother as “someone who is easily led”.

After starting at secondary school she began staying out late and would go missing overnight.

“When she returned home she would be dirty, looking like she had been dragged through a hedge backwards,” said Mr Moore.

Her parents placed her in foster care from March 2010.

At the end of 2010, aged 13, she befriended Tasib on Facebook, where his profile name was Biggy Don.

Tasib, 22, drove a black Audi Q7 with a “cherished” number plate of B11 CGY, intended to spell out Biggy, the court heard.

Mr Moore said: “The victim was a vulnerable girl. The defendant knew it and he took advantage of that for his own sexual purposes.”

The pair swapped messages on Facebook before meeting.

On the evening of December 31, 2010, the young girl was arrested after an altercation in an Oxford pub.

Mr Moore said the girl was dropped home by police at 3am but the teen went out again to meet a friend.

He told the court: “On the way to the Cowley Centre the defendant saw her walking along the road.

“He pulled over, grabbed her by her ponytail and dragged her by her hair into the car.

“Then he locked the doors so she couldn’t get out.

“He pulled his own trousers down and forced her legs open.

“She did her best to stop him by trying to close her legs, again to no avail, and she was crying.”

After the five-minute ordeal he threw her out of the car and sped off, said Mr Moore.

The girl did not confide in anyone about the incident and contact between her and Tasib tailed off.

In summer 2011 though they met up again at a house in Cowley Road, Oxford, and ended up arguing.

Mr Moore said: “During that argument he bit her face on the jawline or somewhere below it.”

Another violent incident followed in December that year, and on one occasion the girl saw a gun in his car, said Mr Moore.

The girl, when 14, tearfully confided in a care worker at a children’s home in Peterborough, about the abuse on New Year’s Day 2012 – a year on from the alleged rape.

Jurors were also shown footage of an interview with the teenager by police in January last year.

She said she had not come forward to report the incidents earlier because she thought “keeping it in was the best thing”.

She added: “I’ve got to the point where it’s sort of ruining my life.”

On January 28 last year, Tasib was arrested but made no comment in interviews.

Tasib, of Wilkins Road, Oxford, denies one count of rape and one count of sexual assault.

The trial, before Judge Nicholas Wood, continues and is expected to last three days.