Oxford rape and trafficking: Who were the victims?

The men would pick the girls up in parks and on the streets of Oxford

Seven men have been convicted at the Old Bailey of being involved in the systematic grooming and trafficking of girls from the Oxford area into a life of sexual abuse.

At the heart of the prosecution was the testimony of six victims who had been targeted, groomed and ultimately controlled and sold for sex with men around the country.

One had been only 11 years old when the gang first approached her. When they gave their evidence, the youngest was 16 and the oldest 21. There were other victims who were not called as witnesses.

All victims of sex attacks are entitled to anonymity under the law. These are their stories, based on what was heard in court; they contain graphic descriptions of sexual violence and abuse.

GIRL ONE

The first victim had a happy home life until her mother began drinking when she suffered post-natal depression after the birth of another child.

By the time she was in secondary school, the girl was smoking and playing truant and hanging around Oxford city centre to avoid home.

Akhtar and Anjum Dogar, two of the brothers at the centre of the abuse, befriended her. She was later introduced to Kamar Jamil and Assad Hussain.

She would stay out all evening with the men, smoking and drinking, and they would give her little gifts - and eventually cannabis and cocaine.

"'They made me feel like I was kind of important," she said.

But by the time she was 13, the men had forced her into sex in guest houses and hotel rooms. The individual acts progressed to group rapes.

As the control moved into its next phase, the men began to threaten her if she refused to meet them. They would sit outside her home in a car or threaten to burn down the house with her family inside.

The assaults progressed to more horrific abuse. Men would come from Bradford, Leeds and Slough to rape her. She saw money change hands as she was forced to have sex with five men a night.

In one house she had seen other girls in a similar state, curled up, waiting for the sex to start again. Like them, she reached a stage where she took sufficient drugs to become so "wasted" she could allow them to rape her and avoid threats and violence.

She told the police of specific memories, including being forced to have sex up to 20 times with a man who came with Moet champagne and cocaine.

Once, Jamil and the Dogar brothers drove her to a country park. Another four men joined them and they threatened to cut off her head if she did not perform sexual acts on all of them.

She would go missing for a week a time - and would return covered in bruises and cigarette burns. She began to self-harm and frequently caught chlamydia.

Girl One was taken into care. She eventually made a complaint to the police against Akhtar Dogar and other men. Dogar was interviewed in September 2006 but denied raping her.

Just after her 16th birthday, the girl threw her phone away, stopped taking drugs and went back to school in an attempt to distance herself from her abusers. She has since gained qualifications and has a new life and job.

GIRL TWO

The second victim had been in care and foster placements from when she was seven years old in 1999.

She became involved in the abuse after meeting Girl One in care who, in turn, introduced her to the Dogar brothers and Kamar Jamil. Together, they would run away from the home to meet the men.

She was driven to alleyways and woods, various houses and flats where she was raped by them and others. She recalled occasions when she and Girl One would be in the same house being raped by different men.

They supplied her with alcohol and drugs, threatened her and burnt her with a lighter. Akhtar Dogar once threatened to have her shot if she did not comply with his demands.

She once tried to flee through a window while in a flat where she was expected to have sex with several men. But the window was too small so she rang the police.

When officers arrived, the place smelled of cannabis and the men had condoms and bundles of money.

The girl admitted she was only 14 and had run away from a children's home and five men were arrested from the address.

But the girl said she was too frightened of the men to allow a case to progress. When a specialist child protection officer attempted to take a video statement, she stated none of the men had abused her.

She came forward only after she saw a news report about the men being arrested in March 2012.

During the abuse, she told another girl who was in care: "I have no choice. I just want to be loved. I've never been loved and this shows me love."

GIRL THREE

The third victim had a difficult and abusive childhood and was subsequently taken into care and adopted.

But she would rebel and go missing - and while she wandered Oxford, she was identified and groomed by Mohammed Karrar.

He introduced her to his brother Bassam and the Dogar brothers and, following the pattern with Girl One, groomed and prepared her.

But in the case of Girl Three, she was trafficked around the country to satisfy the men's clients - taken to properties where other men appeared to be running brothels providing young girls.

Sometimes she was sent away for days at a time. She was often so intoxicated by drink and drugs that she cannot entirely recall all of the abuse.

On one occasion, the court heard, Mohammed Karrar had given her so much crack cocaine she ended up in hospital.

To this day, she has no idea how many men she was sold to for sex.

One of the key allegations in the trial was a rape by Bassam Karrar during which she thought she was going to die.

Another resident at the guest house where this attack occurred called the police.

Her adoptive mother says she repeatedly sought help from the authorities to get her daughter back from the gang but she said nobody was prepared to look at the whole picture of what was going on.

You can read and listen to the full story of Girl Three - and how she has sought to rebuild her life - by following the link.

GIRL FOUR

Girl Four's story reveals considerable detail about the extent of the child sex abuse ring that the Karrar brothers were involved in - abuse involving men in other locations who are not on trial.

She told the court she "made friends" with Mohammed Karrar when she had just turned 11. She was small for her age and it was clear she was still a relatively young child.

Karrar groomed her and would violently rape her and threaten her with weapons.

He also "branded" the girl to signify that she belonged to him.

Karrar made Girl Four pregnant when she was 12 years old. When she told him, he beat her up, then took her to a house in Reading, where a primitive abortion was carried out that prosecutors said could have killed her.

The Karrars controlled her so much they would come to her family home to rape her. Mohammed Karrar, the court heard, regarded her as his property and he would charge men £500 to have sex with her.

They would take her to homes in High Wycombe where she would be subjected to gang rapes - incidents that she described as "torture sex". The men would tie her up and gag her mouth with a ball to stop her cries being heard.

The men would play out abuse fantasies; sometimes she was left bleeding for days afterwards.

In one of her few acts of defiance, she threatened Mohammed Karrar with his own lock knife as he was preparing to rape her. He knocked her out with a metal baseball bat.

The girl revealed details of the abuse to social workers and police. In 2008, another man, Amit Singh was jailed for 27 months after pleading guilty to sexual activity with a child.

GIRL FIVE

The fifth victim was, at 16, the youngest to give evidence in the trial, speaking from behind a screen. She had been abused right up until the arrests in January 2012.

She had spent parts of her childhood in care and with foster parents. She first met the men who would abuse her when she was 12.

The court heard the girl was abused by defendants Assad Hussain, known as "Ash", and Zeeshan Ahmed. Assad Hussain was linked to Girl Five through DNA evidence.

Although there was no evidence he abused her, Kamar Jamil, a supermarket security guard, turned a blind eye to Girl Five and others stealing vodka from his store. Akhtar Dogar tried to have sex with Girl Five - but she punched him in the face to stop him. She had also received a call or made one to Mohammed Karrar's phone.

Prosecutors told the Old Bailey that Girl Five's account was supported by the experiences of the final victim.

On one occasion, Girl Five was in a house with the sixth victim, Zeeshan Ahmed and two other men she described as Asian. She was given cannabis and alcohol and passed out.

GIRL SIX

The last girl to give evidence was friends with Girl Five, through whom she met Zeeshan Ahmed and other older Asian men. They would hang around with them in a park and she was slowly drawn into their world of sexual control.

She said she visited Ahmed's flat with Girl Five, got drunk and smoked cannabis, but refused to take cocaine.

She said that she witnessed Ahmed "sell" Girl Five to other men.

There would be other men in the flat and she rejected their advances and became concerned at the growing number of strangers hanging around the flat.

When she was 15, she said, she had had consensual sex with Ahmed when drunk.