NCJ MEDIA Saman Faiaq Obaid, Palla Pour and Ribas Asad are standing trial for grooming young girls

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The gang allegedly controlled the girls, some aged as young as 13, with drugs and alcohol, contacted them on Facebook to discuss depraved parties and on one occasion demanded sex in return for paying for a tattoo. Once addicted to drugs, the girls were pressed into prostitution in return for ecstasy, cocaine, speed and cannabis, it was claimed. The alleged offences occurred between 2007 and 2014 in Newcastle upon Tyne, involving six “immature and vulnerable” girls whose personality traits were said to have been exploited by the defendants.

Sex with gang members then became “chillingly almost a daily occurrence”, Newcastle Crown Court heard. Anne Richardson, prosecuting, said: “They were young, naive women who were in thrall to and under the control of these, for the most part, older and more worldly-wise defendants.” Miss Richardson told the court the girls were effectively passed between “some if not all the defendants” and were “treated almost as commodities”.

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The defendants, all of Kurdish extraction, face a variety of charges. Soran Azizi, 28, denies, rape, sexual activity with a child and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation. Palla Pour, 25 – known as Pablo – denies four counts of sexual activity with a child, paying for the sexual services of a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, two counts of supplying a controlled drug and knowingly permitting his premises to be used for the supply of controlled drugs. Ribas Asad, 29, denies sexual assault, paying for the sexual services of a child, conspiring to facilitate prostitution, supplying a controlled drug, inciting a child to sexual activity and sexual activity with a child.