Girls 'plied with drink and persuaded to have sex', jury told

A woman has told a court how she and another girl were plied with drink as teenagers before being persuaded to have sex together by alleged grooming gang members. The woman, now aged 35, said she gave in and eventually agreed, after getting drunk, to allow another teen girl to perform a sex act on her, Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester heard.

The other girl, known only as Girl A, alleges she was groomed and sexually abused in Rochdale from the age of 12. Eight men deny a total of 80 sexual offences against her and another complainant, Girl B, between 2002 and 2006.

The witness told the court on Friday from the age of 14, around 2001, she would go to a flat above a disused butcher’s shop in Rochdale, five nights a week after school and at weekends.

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There she would socialise at the flat, owned by the family of two of the defendants, with “Pakistani lads” she knew from a local park. Groups of older lads would buy spirits to drink at the flat and smoke cannabis there, the court heard.

She admitted having consensual sex with two of the defendants – and was in a “casual sexual relationship” with one of them, Ikhlaq Yousaf.

And she told the jury on one occasion, while at the flat, Girl A was brought in. She said: “Someone said to her, along the lines of, ‘You know what to do.’ And she started performing oral sex on someone else.

“To be honest I was quite drunk at that point. I didn’t say anything because nobody else seemed bothered.”

The woman said Yousaf then said, “Let’s see how far she will go”, and suggested to Girl A to have sex with her. The witness told the jury: “I said, ‘I’m not interested.’

“He started making me strong drinks,