This article was originally published May 18 2012

Many of the victims were recruited by a 15 year-old girl, nicknamed The Honey Monster, who coaxed, bribed and bullied them into having sex with older men.

Always domineering and sometimes violent, she forced girls into having sex or paid them either in cheap vodka or small sums of money.

Despite her crucial role, The Honey Monster escaped prosecution because lawyers in the case saw her, too, as a victim.

They reasoned that her moral code had been so skewed by years of abuse that she saw nothing wrong with submitting other girls to the misery she had suffered herself.

However, the first victim in the case said that The Honey Monster should have been prosecuted.

"She was intimidating, she was nasty, she was scary," Girl A said.

"If it was up to me she would be on trial getting worse than they are because she is the main one in this."

She added: "I believe if it was not for her I would not have got into what was going on."

Another girl, now 20, said that the she was given the nickname because she looked "like a Honeymonster".

The jury heard how The Honey Monster frequently had sex with adult men herself, but then moved on "to playing an active role" in the sexual exploitation of younger friends.