Trial hears girl, 13, was 'sex slave' to gang

The men are standing trial at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court

A woman allegedly used as a "sex slave" by a group of Asian men when she was a teenager has told a jury "everybody knew what was going on".

The witness, known as Girl A, told a trial into alleged sexual abuse by an eight-strong gang in Rochdale that she was regarded as a "prostitute" rather than a 13-year-old child.

The eight men deny multiple sexual offences involving two underage girls, including rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child between 2001 and 2006.

Another alleged victim, Girl B, told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court that police and social workers knew what was going on but "weren't concerned enough to do anything about it".

Children's home

Girl B said the abuse began when she was living in a children's home and had started to spend time at Rochdale market, where Mohammed Zahid, then in his 40s, owned a stall.

She said that she was taken weekly to the basement of a shop in Rochdale owned by another man, Mushtaq Ahmed.

In the basement room below the shop, there was a bare mattress on which she would have sex with market stallholder Zahid, the shop owner Ahmed and a third man, Kasir Bashir, the jury was told.

Girl B said she had told the police and social services about what was going on.

"They said I was a prostitute. I was prostituting myself," she told the court.

"I don't remember them being concerned enough to do anything about it.

"I remember knowing that they knew what was going on.

"It always happened, it was nothing new to me.

"I assumed they all knew. The police had picked me up. It all just seemed to me everybody knew what was going on."

The witness told a trial into alleged sexual abuse by eight men in Rochdale that she was regarded as a "prostitute" rather than a 13-year-old child by the gang.

Earlier, prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC told jurors both girls were sexually abused because their troubled backgrounds made them susceptible.

"They were children passed around for sex, abused, degraded and then discarded," Mr Scamardella said,

"They became sex slaves."

Girl B said the abuse ended after she was fostered with a woman who was "like a mum" and lived away from Rochdale.

She said she tracked Bashir down on Facebook years later, took a screen shot of his photo and contacted police.

She also spotted her second alleged abuser, Ahmed, selling fruit and vegetables out of a van near a school.

She said she took a photo of the registration plate and gave it to the police.

When asked why she had not reported the sexual abuse before she first contacted police in May, 2021, Girl B said there was "no reason" for her to think it was wrong because "nobody did anything about it" when she was a child.

She said: "I felt like that was my purpose. I think it had happened that much.

"I never saw it as anything unnatural. I just felt like that was what I was there for.

"I normalised it so much in my own head.

"From the way I see things as a child to now, are two different things."

Mohammed Zahid, Kashir Bashir, Mushtaq Ahmed, Roheez Khan, Mohammed Shahzad, Nisar Hussain, Naheem Akram and Arfhan Khan deny all the allegations against them.

The trial continues.