Oxford exploitation trial: Girl 'treated like meat'

An alleged victim of a child sex ring told police she was "treated like a piece of meat", a court has heard.

Old Bailey jurors saw a video of an interview the girl, then aged 15, gave to police in 2006. She also said: "I know they are doing it to other girls."

She is one of six alleged victims of nine men accused of grooming and exploiting children in Oxford.

The men, from Oxford and Berkshire, deny 51 counts relating to girls aged between 11 and 15 from 2004 to 2012.

The court heard the girl, who was living in a children's home at the time, went to South Park with a group of Asian men and after a while was left with two of them.

She described how she was given alcohol and made to give the men oral sex.

She told police: "They kept saying horrible things to me, really degrading, that make me feel like a piece of dirt.

"In the end I thought it would be easier to just do it to shut them up."

Jurors were told the next day the alleged victim was made to have sex with a man in another park.

She said when she tried to refuse he told her he was getting angry, adding: "You are not going to like it when I get angry so just make sure you make me happy."

The court heard he bent her fingers back to the point she thought they were going to break before she agreed to have sex with him.

The alleged victim said if she refused to have sex with the men they would also threaten to hurt her family.

"They said they would burn my brother alive," she said.

When asked by police how having sex made her feel she said: "I just hated myself, I just felt disgusted at myself, and thought why am I doing it? Why is he doing it? He knows how old I am.

The court also heard the girl was "just sick" of her alleged abusers.

"They constantly take advantage and treat me like a piece of meat they can just tread all over," she told police.

"I know they are doing it to other girls as well. I see them doing it. Little girls in school uniforms."

The court heard the girl reported her alleged abuse to police so the men would no longer have control of her life.

"I do not think anyone should have to live like that," she told police.

She told the court she and a friend would play truant from school when she was about 13 to meet the men, who were nice to her at first.

She said they gave her gifts which she described as "trinkets".

"It made me feel like I was kind of important," she told the jury.

The court heard she felt as though she "owed" the men because they had also given her alcohol and drugs.

"It was always at the back of my mind that I was to keep them happy," she said.

The trial is expected to last until April. The defendants, who are all in custody, are: