A member of the mostly-Muslim Newcastle sex grooming gang, which preyed on teenage girls, once told a female ticket inspector: “White women are good for only one thing – for people like me to f*** and use as trash.”

Badrul Hussain, 37, (pictured, right) was found guilty of four drug offences Wednesday as part of ‘Operation Sanctuary’, the UK’s largest investigation into grooming gangs since Rochdale and Rotherham.

Mr Hussain made the expletive-laden comment after being caught travelling without a ticket on the Tyne and Wear Metro in 2014 by a white female rail employee, The Times reports, laying bare his contemptuous attitude to non-Muslim women.

Many other defendants claimed that their victims were liars and Habibur Rahim, 34, (pictured, left) who was convicted of human trafficking and rape, claimed, “the police were racist”.

However, the weight of evidence against the men in the massive investigation was strong. The court heard how gangs of groomers who were friends and relatives, mainly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, raped, trafficked, and drugged white women from troubled backgrounds.

The Times also reported the story of one 13-year-old victim who was collected from a children’s home, drugged with cocaine and mephedrone, and raped by up to seven men at so-called “sessions”, or sex parties, held by the groomers.

During the investigation, a young adult with learning difficulties also made allegations of sex offences in Newcastle and described sex-grooming “parties” in the city.

After four trials over two years, 17 men of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian, and Turkish heritage were found guilty of 87 sex and drug offences.

Also convicted was a young white woman, Carolann Gallon, 22, who lured younger girls to the groomers and has admitted trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Jim Hope, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said Wednesday: “These men systematically groomed and abused vulnerable teenage girls and young women over a number of years for their own sexual gratification.”