OXFORD GROOMING TRIAL: Three accused of child sexual exploitation

From the Oxford Mail

THREE men alleged to have raped, sexually abused and exploited a ‘vulnerable’ Oxford school girl as part of a grooming ring have gone on trial.

Mohammed Karrar, 44, Bassam Karrar, 39 and Anjum Dogar, 36, deny 11 counts of rape, indecent assault and conspiracy to rape. Their trial, which began at Oxford Crown Court on Monday, can only now be reported after restrictions were lifted by presiding Judge Peter Ross this morning.

Oliver Saxby QC said the three men sexually abused one alleged victim over a number of years in the early 2000s.

“…the crown allege that these three defendants were part of a wider group of young men who over this period in Oxford sexually exploited vulnerable young girls for regular, casual and entirely functional sexual contact. In a car, in a park, in someone’s flat. The common theme being sexual gratification that had the appearance of being consensual but in reality, courtesy of the level of exploitation and grooming involved, was anything but consensual.”

The woman, who was aged between 14 and 16 at the time, he told the court, was plied with drink and drugs and made to perform numerous sex acts on the men, who also raped her. On one of the instances of alleged abuse, the court heard, the woman woke up alone on a sofa naked, having suffered bleeding and bruising, allegedly having been raped by one of the men.

Another occasion, Mr Saxby told jurors, the woman was made to repeatedly perform sex acts on a group of men while in a car at Cutteslowe Park.

The alleged victim, who is from Oxford and now aged in her 30s, went on to start telling her version of events as the trial continued this afternoon, and spoke to jurors from a live video-link. 

She described being a ‘lonely’ and ‘sad’ child at the time the abuse started and said she was ‘a scruffy kid’ who struggled to make friends. ‘I didn’t think I was being abused as I felt good about all these people liking me.”

(She) described being sexually abused by a group of men at a party at Plowman Tower, Oxford, and told jurors: “I remember sitting on the sofa and I remember people touching me and pulling at my clothes and stuff, and trying to bat them away. I felt like there were hands everywhere. Someone had their hands down my trousers trying to put their fingers inside me.”

She told the court that she next recalled waking up alone and naked except for a single sock she was wearing, and that she was in a great deal of pain and had bite marks on her body.

Mohammed Karrar denies three counts of indecent assault, one count of rape and another of conspiracy to rape.

Bassam Karrar denies one count of indecent assault and one of rape.

Anjum Dogar denies one count of indecent assault, one count of rape and three counts of conspiracy to rape.

The trial – expected to last three weeks, continues.

Karrar and Dogar are familiar surnames – either cousins or more distant kinsmen from nearby villages in Pakistan have been tried in such cases before.