Rotherham sex abuse trial: Teenage girls 'repeatedly raped' Published duration 10 December 2015 Related Topics Rotherham child abuse scandal

image copyright PA image caption Arshid Hussain faces 30 charges including five counts of rape

Twelve girls in Rotherham were repeatedly raped, beaten, passed between abusers and used as prostitutes, a court has heard.

Prosecutors told Sheffield Crown Court the girls were sexually abused from as young as 12, with some becoming pregnant.

Five men and two women face more than 60 charges, including rape and false imprisonment, over a 10 year period.

The seven defendants deny all the charges.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Michelle Colborne QC told the jury: "It is alleged that in differing ways they facilitated the sexual abuse of teenage girls.

"You will hear evidence from 12 women who were targeted, sexualised and in some instances subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature."

'Exploitative behaviour'

Ms Colborne said Arshid Hussain, 40, known as Mad Ash, played a key role.

She said: "He was domineering and, in some instances, brutal in his treatment of girls.

"He used them for his own gratification, then often prostituted them or passed them on to his brothers or associates of his.

"He was assisted in differing ways by the other defendants, each willingly engaged in exploitative behaviour and using the girls to their own ends."

Arshid Hussain, 40, High Street, East Cowick, Goole, faces 30 charges, including five counts of rape.

Qurban Ali, 53, Clough Road, Rotherham, faces four charges, including rape and conspiracy to rape.

Majid Bostan, 37, Ledsham Road, Rotherham faces one charge of indecent assault.

Sajid Bostan, 38, Broom Avenue, Rotherham faces seven charges, including four counts of rape,.

Basharat Hussain, 39, of no fixed abode, faces 16 charges including two counts of rape.

Karen MacGregor, 58, Barnsley Road, Wath, South Yorkshire, faces three charges, including conspiracy to rape.

Shelley Davies, 40, Wainwright Road, Kimberworth Park, Rotherham, faces three charges, including conspiracy to rape.

Ms Colborne said one alleged victim was abused by both Arshid and Basharat Hussain from the age of 14, adding that she also handled guns and drugs for the brothers and was made to work as a prostitute.

The alleged victim described the brothers as "owning Rotherham" and said she felt compelled to do what they told her.

The prosecution said even though some of the alleged victims were in care there was no investigation by the authorities of why they went missing.

image copyright PA image caption The court heard Shelley Davies (left) and Karen MacGregor befriended one of the alleged victims in the 1980s

Ms Colborne said another alleged victim, who is now 43, was befriended by the two women defendants - Karen MacGregor and Shelley Davies - in the late 1980s.

The prosecutor said that one night she passed out in Ms MacGregor's house after drinking vodka with a group of about six men.

She said the girl woke up to find herself being sexually assaulted by an unknown man.

Ms Colborne said: "(She) was plied with vodka to a point where she was incapacitated and taken upstairs by Karen MacGregor with the intention that the unidentified male would have sexual intercourse with her."

She told the jury of six men and six women: "The prosecution say she deliberately set out to make girls available for sexual encounters with older men."

Ms Colborne said a mother who tried to intervene when she found out her then 14-year-old daughter was associating with a group of older Asian men was threatened that her house would be firebombed.

The trial continues.