A vulnerable girl known to police and social services was repeatedly raped by 14 different men and boys over a 13-month period, a court has heard.

 

The girl, who cannot be named, was introduced to the men when she was 12 by a young drug dealer in her home town of Keighley, West Yorkshire, Bradford crown court was told.

 

She claims he and his friends raped her when she was 13 and 14 in various locations across Keighley, including a disused underground car park where the men allegedly wrote their names and hers on the wall in graffiti.

 

Thirteen men and a 17-year-old youth went on trial on Tuesday charged with a total of 28 sexual offences. Some of the men laughed in the dock as the prosecution outlined the case against them, earning a rebuke from the judge.

 

Among the accused are three sets of brothers. Sufyan Ziarab, 22, and Bilal Ziarab, 21, both face two rape charges. When arrested, Sufyan denied any criminal activity and told detectives “she groomed herself”, the court heard.

 

Yasser Kabir, 25, faces four rape counts, while his younger brother Tauqeer Hussain, 23, is accused of raping both the main complainant and another, unrelated girl several years earlier, in the underground car park at Keighley’s disused police station. His nickname, Toky, was found scrawled in a parking bay, along with the victim’s name and those of some of the other defendants, the jury was told. An attempt had been made to paint over the graffiti.

 

Faisal Khan, 27, is charged with two counts of rape, his brother Nazir Khan, 23, faces three rape counts and their cousin Saqib Younis, 29, faces two counts. The youngest defendant, 17, who cannot be named, is charged with rape.

 

The oldest defendant, Mohammed Akram, a 62-year-old taxi driver, is accused of having sex with the girl when she was 14. He was arrested when forensic analysts found his DNA on the girl’s underwear. He denies one charge of sexual activity with a child under 16.

 

The girl, who is white and now 18, had an unhappy home life and was reported missing 71 times by her family between 2010 and 2012, at which point she was taken into care, the jury was told.

 

In early May 2011, the girl told her mother she had been raped. She later told a police officer that she had been raped by Ahmed al-Arif Choudry, a then 15-year-old drug dealer two years her senior, for whom she had been running errands.

 

She said he threatened her when she told him she wanted to stop working for him and then raped her. Many of the alleged rapes occurred when the defendants threatened to call Choudry if the girl did not submit to their demands, the court heard.

 

By early 2012 a pastoral support worker was so worried about the girl’s truanting that she was referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

 

“How was it that an otherwise sensible child went from attending school and staying in at night to delivering drugs for a local drug dealer aged 13?” said Michelle Colborne QC, opening the case for the prosecution.

 

She said the girl’s problems began when she started secondary school in Keighley. “She was noted to be a reserved young girl with low self-esteem. She had no friends,” said the barrister.

 

Desperate to make friends, she would try to attract the attention of older boys, the court heard. Choudry was one of them, Colborne said.

 

At times the girl thought she was perhaps having a good time, the barrister said. The truth was that she was “lacking the wherewithal to extricate herself given her longing to belong,” she said.

 

“This was not a happy child, say the prosecution. That’s because she was so desperate to belong … She was being exploited and was out of her depth but was too naive to do anything about it,” Colborne told the jury.

 

The other men on trial are Rohail Iqbal, 22, and Rohail Hussain, 18, both of Keighley, both accused of one count of rape, and Zain Ali, 20, Hussain Sardar, 19, and Israr Ali, 19, all of Keighley, who each face two rape charges.

 

The trial continues.