Oxford child sex abuse ring witness tells court: I did not have a choice

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Created on Monday, 21 January 2013 00:00

Oxford child sex abuse ring witness tells court: I did not have a choice

21 Jan 2013

First witness gives evidence in trial of nine men accused of multiple rapes and extreme sexual abuse against children

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Alexandra Topping

A young woman has told a court that as a girl of 14 she was taken to empty flats and guest houses in Oxford by a group of men where she was raped by "other men".

The first witness in a child sex abuse trial described being groomed by the men after running away from her children's home, saying that the men were "nice" at first before they became "demanding" and "threatening".

The young woman, who is now 21 and was identified to the court as Girl B, described meeting three defendants, Kamar Jamil, whom she knew as "K Dog", Akhtar Dogar and Anjum Dogar, whom she knew as "Jammy", and another man called Khan who is not in the dock, when she was 14.

Speaking at the trial of nine men who stand accused of multiple rapes and extreme sexual abuse against children as young as 11, the Old Bailey heard that the girl would repeatedly run away from her children's home with another 14-year-old, who is also giving evidence in the trial, to meet up with a group of men in Oxford.

Looking pale but composed, she described being ferried around a number of guest houses, private premises, parks and graveyards between July and mid-September in 2006, where she was coerced into having sex with the men.

The Dogar brothers both told the young woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, they had guns so she would be scared for her life, she told the court. Sometimes the men "would invite others as well", she said. She told the court that at first she told the men she was 16, but then told them she was 14, adding that she was "small".

On one occasion she was driven to a flat by Jamil and given alcohol. After a while a "very fat and ugly" man in his late 30s arrived. She told the court: "K Dog said I had to go with the men in the bedroom so he could talk to me." She added: "Obviously I knew what they wanted … I knew he was there to have sex with me."

When she refused, he became threatening. "He said I was wasting that guy's time and that I should go to the bedroom with him." He grabbed her and pulled her into the room. The waiting man pushed her on to the bed, pulled her trousers down and raped her. "I was struggling for a while beforehand but then I just gave up," she said.

She described an occasion soon after meeting the four men, when Jamil and Khan drove the girls to a deserted field outside the city and plied them with vodka and Red Bull. Her friend, Girl A, had "normal" and oral sex with K Dog in the back of the car, she said.

After they had finished, he told Girl B to get in the back of the car.

"I felt like I had to and I didn't have a choice," she told the court.

When she told Jamil, who was 21 at the time, that she didn't want to give him oral sex, he forced her to.

Afterwards, he also "had sex with her", she added. Asked how, she said: "He just took my trousers off and had sex." She felt she couldn't stop him doing what he wanted her to do. Asked why, she added: "Because I didn't have a choice and I felt like I couldn't say no to him."

The girl said she had met the men though Girl A, who lived at the same children's home near Oxford. The girls would repeatedly run away from the home, between July and mid-September 2006. They would run away, dressed as though they were "going clubbing" about three times a week, and "stay in Oxford for a week, two weeks at a time", she said.

Kamar Jamil, 27; Akhtar Dogar, 32; Anjum Dogar, 30; Assad Hussain, 32; Mohammed Karrar, 38; Bassam Karrar, 26; Mohammed Hussain, 24; Zeeshan Ahmed, 27; and Bilal Ahmed, 26, face 51 counts, including rape, forcing a child into prostitution and trafficking.

The court has heard how the nine men targeted young girls from vulnerable and chaotic backgrounds, and over a period of eight years made their lives a "living hell", subjecting them to extreme physical and sexual violence, selling some victims for prostitution in Oxford and trafficking others around the country. The men deny the charges against them.

The trial continues.

Source: The Guardian UK