For more than a decade, terrified children in an English town were routinely beaten, burnt and spat upon by men who groomed and sexually abused girls as young as 11 before “passing them on” to friends and relatives, a court was told yesterday.

Young teenagers from Rotherham, many in care or from troubled backgrounds, are said to have been tortured and forced to have sex with Asian men “on an almost daily basis”.

Their abusers labelled them “white trash”. One girl was told she would be taken to Pakistan. Another recognised her abuser as a local “MP or councillor”.

Judge Sarah Wright told jurors at Sheffield crown court that they “may well” have previously read or heard accounts of child abuse in Rotherham. These understandably