Girls raped in Rotherham were treated as 'objects to be used,' jurors in Sheffield told
Two girls were raped in Rotherham when one was as young as 12 by men who treated them as "objects to be used", a jury has been told.
Both were targeted because their vulnerability "made them attractive to those who wanted to exploit young, vulnerable girls", a prosecutor told Sheffield Crown Court on Monday.
Opening the trial of Obaidullah Omari and Shafakit Hussain, prosecutor Matthew Bean described how the two girls were sexually abused more than 20 years ago in the South Yorkshire town.
Mr Bean said: "These were, in each case, far from normal sexual encounters where consent is clear and obvious, where the parties are on equal terms, where consent is freely given without inducement, or pressure, or fear.
"For these defendants, the girls were objects to be used. There was no true consent."
Mr Bean told the jury of eight men and four women: "The prosecution say that, at the time the offences took place, both girls were already vulnerable.
"Both were the product of fractured or failing families.
"Both were being looked after in the care system, without the immediate protection of their parents.
"What is more, their circumstances, the hand that they had each been dealt, perhaps meant that they would push against the rules, whether at home or in the care system."
He said: "The prosecution say that this, no doubt, made them attractive to those who wanted to exploit young, vulnerable girls.
"They were, it was perhaps thought, the sort of girls who might not complain.
"Indeed, they did not make any complaints at the time."
Mr Bean told the jury: "You will have heard of the scandal associated with the abuse of many girls in Rotherham and other towns.
"The fact is it happened and may still be happening."
He told the jurors they should "put to one side the obvious distress and sadness which is associated with the exploitation of the young and to decide, with a clear head, whether the prosecution have got it right against the two defendants in this trial".
One of the complainants was raped by both men, Mr Bean said, and she said the abuse began when she was 12.
The prosecutor said this girl had suffered from an extremely chaotic and difficult childhood and "was repeatedly sexually abused by a number of men during the time that she was 12 or 13".
He described one occasion when the girl ran away from home and, when police came looking for her, Omari picked her up, took her to his home and had sex with her.
He said Omari was in his mid-20s at the time.
Mr Bean said: "This was a man in his mid 20s taking a very young girl back to his home, giving her alcohol and then engaging in sexual intercourse with her."
Mr Bean said Hussain raped the same girl on three separate occasions when she was 13 years old and he was in his mid 20s.
The charges relating to the second complainant are only faced by Omani, whom both girls knew as "Naj".
Mr Bean said this girl had an "extremely unsettled" childhood and went "off the rails" at a young age, getting in trouble with the police.
He said an older girl introduced this complainant to her "Asian boyfriends" and "a number of these men would, the prosecution say, go on to sexually abuse (her)".
The prosecutor said she met Omani, who was in his mid 20s, in Rotherham bus station and "came to believe that she was his girlfriend".
Mr Bean told jurors: "Over the time that they were together, she will tell you that they would engage in sexual activity in his home and car between three to four times a day."
He said some of the charges faced by Omani relating to this complainant are "multiple incident counts" meaning they are alleged to have happened on at least 10 occasions.
But he said the prosecution case was that it was many more times than this.
Mr Bean told the jury the woman will tell them how she felt she "had to do it" and that, on some occasions, she was drunk, due to the alcohol Omani had given her.
He said: "She will also describe how she would sometimes cry during sexual activity."
Hussain, 46, of Rotherham , denies three counts of raping one of the girls.
Omari, also 46, of Sheffield , denies two counts of raping the same girl - including one charge of raping a child under 13.
He also denies two counts of rape and two of indecent assault relating to the second complainant.