Four men have been convicted of sexually abusing a vulnerable young girl who described in court how she had been traded among men from the age of 13.
The victim told how she was forced to perform sex acts in a churchyard, raped above a shop on a filthy mattress and violently abused when she tried to refuse their advances in a series of incidents that took place over 15 years ago.
She said she was assaulted by other as-yet unidentified males, with the abuse continuing until she was in her mid-teens.
The prosecution told the jury at Birmingham crown court that the girl was passed around “like a piece of meat”.
She testified that she repeatedly thought about taking her own life and claimed teachers did not intervene when rumours about her went around her school.
Jurors were told that the victim was sold for sex, first by a man named Tanveer Ahmed, who “befriended her” during a low point in her life.
Ahmed, who did takeaway deliveries at Perfect Pizza in Telford, Shropshire, was not on trial alongside the other defendants, having been deported to Pakistan.
He was jailed for two-and-a-half years in 2012 after admitting a charge of controlling a child prostitute. Ahmed was one of a number of men imprisoned after an investigation into a child sex abuse ring in Telford as part of West Mercia police’s Operation Chalice inquiry.
Later, the victim came into contact with the first defendant, Mohammed Ali Sultan, 33, formerly of Telford, whom she said also sold her for sex, raped and abused her. Ali Sultan was also among the men originally convicted following the Chalice investigation.
The victim told police that, years after the abuse ended, she recognised photos of Ali Sultan and Ahmed from press reports on the Telford sex ring.
The offences took place sometime between 2000 and 2003, and started when the girl, now an adult, was just 13.
Asked during the trial why she did not tell anyone about exactly what happened until years later, she replied: “I think I had just had enough, I kept it to myself for all these years. Still to this day it goes through my head, all the time.”
On Tuesday, Ali Sultan was convicted of rape and three counts of indecent assault. Mohammad Rizwan, 37, also of Telford, was also convicted of two counts of indecent assault. Shafiq Younas, 35, of Wellington, near Telford, was found guilty of indecently assaulting the victim in a churchyard. Amjad Hussain, 38, of Telford was convicted of a single count of indecent assault.
Jurors cleared a fifth man, Nazam Akhtar, 35, of Wellington, of raping the girl in the back of a car.
The four men will be sentenced on Thursday.
