Sex Ring Trial: Girl Talked Out Of Complaint

A teenager who was raped by a man accused of being involved in a child sex ring says she was persuaded to drop her complaint to police.

Bassam Karrar, 32, allegedly abused the 14-year-old girl while he was high on cocaine in a house in Oxford when she refused to have sex with him, the Old Bailey heard.

The youngster, who cannot be named for legal reasons, reported Karrar to police but was persuaded to withdraw her complaint by another girl who was "seeing" the defendant at the time, jurors were told.

Karrar is one of nine men from the Oxford area who deny 51 counts, including rape, trafficking and organising prostitution involving six girls aged between 11 and 15 between 2004 and last year.

The accused include two sets of brothers, Karrar and Mohammed Karrar, 38 - described as "the sick sex monsters" by one of the young victims.

The others are Akhtar Dogar, 32, and Anjum Dogar, 30, Kamar Jamil, 27, Zeeshan Ahmed, 27, Assad Hussain, 32, Bilal Ahmed, 26, and Mohammed Hussain, 24.

The men are all of either Pakistani or north African descent.

After a neighbour called police in 2006, the 14-year-old girl was found in the basement of a house "extremely distressed, crying and shaking", prosecutor Noel Lucas QC said.

The teenager told police she had been held against her will, raped and repeatedly smacked in the face.

She also claimed her head had been held under a shower and that she had been injected with a drug.

A second girl aged 14 also spoke to police after she was found in a property with two of the defendants.

The girl later admitted to police to having sex with at least two of the men and said she had run away from a children's home, Mr Lucas said.

The trial has already heard that a third girl claimed two men had forced her to snort cocaine and left her in an unconscious state.

Then, in September 2006, the girl told police she had had sex with one of the defendants - Akhtar Dogar - and another man in a park in exchange for drugs.

The girl was examined by a doctor, who found injuries consistent with "forceful oral sex", the court heard.

A fourth girl was forced into an illegal abortion when she fell pregnant after being raped from the age of 12, the court heard.

The girl, who acted as a carer for her deaf parents, was allegedly abused by Mohammed Karrar and his brother Bassam between the ages of 11 and 15.

She claimed she had been "sold" to Karrar by an unnamed man to "cure her bad attitude", Mr Lucas said.

The trial continues.