A total of 17 men and a woman have been convicted of rape, sexual assault, human trafficking and inciting prostitution in Newcastle, United Kingdom.
It is said to be the seventh large-scale gang sex scandal to hit the UK after infamous cases from towns including Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and Bristol.
According to MailOnline, the victim was taken from her home and repeatedly raped by men as if they were in a ‘relay race’.
The shocking case of the vulnerable 13-year-old, who was in the care of local authorities, emerged after an 18-strong gang, was convicted of crimes against up to 108 girls.
The girl told the court how she would regularly be supplied with cash, cigarettes and drugs in exchange for sex.
The report revealed that the convicts plied vulnerable young girls with drink and drugs at sex ‘sessions’ in city in horrific escapades that led to the arrest of 461 people .
Police said there were 278 victims in the sex ordeal, during which a convicted rapist informant was paid £10,000 by police to spy on the sex gang.
The girl, whose identity is protected, spoke of how she would be picked up in a Mercedes from the children’s home where she was living and taken to flats in Newcastle to be used by anyone who wanted her.
John Elvedge QC, prosecuting counsel, told the court that during one attack, the victim was high on cocaine while men took turns to have sex with her under a Kurdish flag.
The newspaper said the shocking details of the large-scale Asian sex gang operation could be revealed for the first time after reporting restrictions were lifted recently.
A court heard the group spent four years plying vulnerable young girls with drink and drugs at ‘sex parties’ in Newcastle.
Another victim, described in court as ‘extremely vulnerable’ and unable to look after herself, told a jury how she was 19 when she was given cannabis and raped by Abdul Milnoyee. She was then passed on to other men.
One of the gang convicted of grooming vulnerable girls on Tyneside told his wife he was going night fishing before he picked up a drunk 15-year-old on the street and raped her.
Yet another defendant was jailed for witness intimidation and assault after telling a young girl he had seen in the street that ‘everybody wanted her six feet under’.
The court heard older men preyed on immature teenagers who were plied with cocaine, cannabis, alcohol or mephedrone (M-Cat), then raped or persuaded into having sexual activity at parties known as ‘sessions’.
The case has raised huge controversy after a convicted child rapist was paid almost £10,000 of taxpayers’ money to spy on parties where under-age girls were intoxicated and sexually abused.
Steve Ashman, Northumbria Police Chief Constable, said sexual exploitation is the “challenge of our generation” and must be considered socially unacceptable in all communities.
His force launched a major investigation after receiving information from social workers and initially spoke to 108 potential victims.
Over the course of four trials, 20 young women gave evidence covering a period from 2011 to 2014.
Those prosecuted were from the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish communities and were mainly British-born, with most living in the West End of Newcastle.
The court heard that one of the men convicted, 37-year-old Badrul Hussain, was heard telling a ticket collector on the Tyne and Wear Metro: “All white women are good for one thing, for men like me to f*** and use as trash, that is all women like you are worth.”
The sex ring was exposed when two women spoke to the authorities in 2013 and within weeks police had made 27 arrests under an investigation which became known as ‘Operation Shelter’.
During a series of trials that followed, one young person gave evidence on six separate occasions in front of six different juries about her plight.