‘At the start they made out like they wanted to be your friend.Then the intensity crept up. They would put you off everybody. They would say your family was your enemy, your friends were your enemies': Victim of a sex gang speaks of her nightmare

Here is a touching story of a girl who was academically gifted and who dreamed of becoming a forensic scientist. At the age of 12, two Pakistani brothers befriended her... and that was when her nightmare began. Read her story...

During her primary school years, Katie was considered academically gifted and dreamed of becoming a forensic scientist.
At home, her loving parents read her bedtime stories and would at times remind her to feed her giant African land snail.
But when she turned 12 her life changed forever. Sitting on some steps with a friend in Oxford, Katie was approached by two Pakistani brothers who befriended her with alcohol and cigarettes.
She was flattered by the attention they paid her, completely unaware she was being groomed for sexual exploitation until it was too late.

For almost three years she was violently and sexually abused by a gang and then sold for sex on hundreds of different occasions to a network of child abusers across Britain.
Shockingly, during her ordeal she told police and social services she was being abused, but nothing was done to help her.
As some of her abusers started long jail sentences yesterday, Katie spoke for the first time about her three-year nightmare.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘By all accounts I was a bit of a geek at school,’ she said.
‘Then six months later I become somebody who went missing all the time, coming back days later, filthy and dirty.
'The sudden change is scary to think about, even now.’
Katie still struggles to comprehend how a girl with upstanding parents – her father is a civil engineer – could fall prey to such abuse.

‘At the start they made out like they wanted to be your friend. Then the intensity crept up. They would put you off everybody. They would say your family was your enemy, your friends were your enemies.

Abuse was carried out at the Nanford Guest House in Oxford. Pictured is a room at the guest house

‘By this point I thought my teenage friends wouldn’t like me any more. They would say if you go back to school no one is going to like you because you’re a slag.’
After several months, the Pakistani men began to ask her for sex, pretending to want a loving relationship with her.
But soon they were threatening violence if Katie refused to do what she was told. 
On some occasions there were up to ten men were in the room, waiting to have sex with her. Some of the men paid £600 each to have sex with the victims.

Katie said: ‘They just thought they could do what they wanted with me, no matter how disgusting. It got to the point where I just went along with things.
'Mentally I shut down and just did it.’
Aged 14, and by now in a care home, she alerted her carer to the abuse but was ignored. 
A month after her 15th birthday, she told police that one of her abusers, Akhtar Dogar, was forcing her to have sex with him and other men.
But instead of following up these allegations, she said officers threatened to arrest her for wasting police time.
‘My behaviour and appearance should have been sending alarm bells,’ she said.
Although Katie is now in a long-term relationship, memories of her past still haunt her.
She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the age of 15 and suffers from severe bouts of depression and OCD. 
*Katie’s name has been changed to protect her anonymity.
*The men have all been convicted for this crime and are now in jail.

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