A woman who was 'traded between men and raped' as a girl today told a court that 'not one teacher' intervened when she was bullied over the abuse at school.

The victim claimed she was forced to perform sex acts in a churchyard, raped above a takeaway shop on a dirty mattress, and violently abused when she tried to refuse the men's advances.

On one occasion she said she was urinated on by one of five men, all of whom are on trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

The offences are alleged to have taken place in the Telford, Shropshire, and started when the girl, now an adult, was just 12.

She was sexually exploited and 'passed around like a piece of meat' until in her mid-teens, taken to a flat above a Perfect Pizza shop 'to have sex with Asian men', and 'lost count' of how many she was forced to sleep with, the court heard.

The woman told Birmingham Crown Court how she was abused and raped by countless men when she was a child

Opening the case on Monday, Michelle Heeley QC said the victim was sold for sex by a man named Tanveer Ahmed, who 'befriended her' during a low point in her life.

Ahmed, who made takeaway deliveries for Perfect Pizza in the town, is not on trial alongside the other defendants, having been deported to Pakistan for 'unrelated offences'.

Later, the girl came into contact with the first defendant, Mohammed Ali Sultan, 33, who the victim also alleges sold her for sex and abused her.

Ali Sultan is facing two charges of rape and three of indecent assault. He already had convictions in both 2012 and 2015 for 'similar offences against young girls'.

Jurors watched a video-recorded interview with the victim, in which she told detectives of enduring two years of 'hell' and repeatedly contemplated taking her own life as she was traded between different men for 'months and months'.

She said her family knew nothing at the time but added that 'people at school' somehow found out, through rumour.

She said: 'I don't know how people found out, but they did. I wouldn't say I was bullied for it, but I would get called names. It just made me keep it to myself even more.

'There used to be like actions, with their hand, hand by their mouth, suggesting b******s.

'Even the teachers heard people saying these things and not one teacher pulled me to the side and asked me if things were all right. I was too scared to go and ask for help. But nobody said a word.'

She told police that, years after the abuse ended, she recognised photos of two alleged attackers, Ali Sultan and Ahmed, from press reports on the 'Telford sex ring', during the Operation Chalice investigation.

Asked why she did not tell anyone about exactly happened until years later, she replied: 'I think I had just had enough, I kept it to myself for all these years.

'Why should somebody be able to do those things and get away with it? Still to this day it goes through my head, all the time.'

She also told how, at the time, her mother 'went berserk' at her, after a neighbour had told her, 'Pakistani [men] were coming to the house when she wasn't there'.

Barrister Anthony Barraclough, representing Ali Sultan, asked the woman - giving evidence in court from behind a screen - if she had 'lied' about one of the alleged rapes, after telling the jury there was evidence that his client was in Pakistan at the time.

She replied: 'I know what he did.'

Mr Barraclough then asked why she told a 'lie to police', by changing an account she gave at the time.

She said: 'I told them that I had been raped, then I told them I hadn't because I was too scared to tell them.'

Earlier, she claimed to have been threatened by Ali Sultan as a child never to speak of her alleged abuse.

It was only years later that she finally spoke about what happened, when police knocked her door. 'I was being raped and abused and assaulted,' she said.

The other men on trial are Amjad Hussain, 38, from Leegomery, Telford, who is accused of forcing her to perform oral sex on two separate occasions.

Shafiq Younas, 35, from Wellington, near Telford, is accused of orally raping the youngster in the same churchyard in Wellington.

Nazam Akhtar, 35, from Wellington, has been charged with rape, said to have happened in the back of a car.

Also on trial is Mohammad Rizwan, from Telford, who jurors heard also worked at Perfect Pizza and forced the girl to perform sex acts.

The 37-year-old, who will tell jurors that he had a consensual relationship with the victim when she was 17, faces two charges of indecent assault.

Asked by Mr Barrclough if she had made accusations against Ali Sultan because Ahmed was now abroad, beyond the reach of English courts, the woman replied: 'It's not about getting my own back.

'It's about getting justice. He shouldn't be able to walk around.'

The men deny any wrongdoing and the trial continues.