A woman who took vulnerable teenagers to be drugged and sexually exploited by a Newcastle grooming gang has been jailed for more than six years.
Carolann Gallon, 22, brought a 13-year-old who had run away from foster care to a Tyneside flat knowing she was likely to be the victim of a sexual offence.
Two of her victims were in care when she brought them to be abused, Newcastle crown court heard. When she was arrested, she told police: “It’s self-inflicted; I’ve got no sympathy.”
Her prison sentence came at the end of a week in which 16 other members of the 18-strong Newcastle grooming gang were handed lengthy jail terms for offences including drugging, trafficking and sexually exploiting their young victims.
The gang were brought to trial following an unprecedented and strongly criticised police investigation in which a convicted rapist was paid £10,000 to inform on the gang. One further member of the gang remains to be sentenced on Monday.
Newcastle crown court heard that the victims, aged between 13 and 25, some of whom were in care, were plied with alcohol and drugs before being sexually abused at “sessions” in the west end of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
One girl, who was 13 years old and in care when she was first attacked in 2012, told the court through her mental health worker: “I was harmed beyond imagination, physically, emotionally and psychologically.”
The next year Gallon took the same girl to a series of addresses in Newcastle’s west end, where she was given alcohol and drugs and raped, she told police later.
Gallon, the only woman charged in connection with Operation Shelter, was jailed on Friday for six years and three months after admitting three counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
The 22-year-old defendant, who was 17 when the offences began, told police after she was arrested: “[The victims] shouldn’t have too much to drink. If they want to go with them, they have got their own mind to go with people.
“They are not some kid, they are 15 or 16. If they’re mortal [drunk] they are going to do something, why get mortal in the first place? It’s self-inflicted, I’ve got no sympathy.”
Gallon’s barrister, Uzma Khan, said Gallon was herself a victim. The defendant had been neglected by her parents, Khan claimed, and described her case as “a classic example of the abused becoming the abuser and the groomed becoming the groomer”.
However, that argument was rejected by the judge, Penny Moreland, who said that while Gallon’s childhood was tough, she had not complained to police about any abuse.
The judge said: “You were described yourself as being a victim. There have been ample opportunities for you to make complaints about these matters. You have never chosen to do so. The result is your complaints have never been tested in court.”
At the end of the sentencing hearing, Gallon’s father shouted: “Can I just say, how cruel a judge can be? How cruel can anybody get?”
Gallon called out “Dad, I love you” as she was led away.
Outside court, a senior detective said the abusers had underestimated their victims’ desire for justice. Det Supt Steve Barron said: “These offenders targeted these women because of their vulnerabilities. They hugely underestimated their strength and determination to seek justice, they thought no one would believe them. We believed them, as did the jury.”
Barron said he wanted to ensure there was a “repugnant stigma” attached to sexual exploitation in all communities and “in particular against individuals who think this treatment of women and girls is in any way acceptable”.
The 17 defendants received sentences totalling more than 180 years in prison, including two men for 29 years each for a string of offences including rape, conspiracy to incite prostitution and drugs offences.
The 18th and final member of the grooming gang will be sentenced on Monday.
