A jury has heard how a girl was taken to a house in Bristol where she was ‘repeatedly raped’ by three men and a teenage boy in an attack the prosecution says lasted several hours.
Bristol Crown Court heard the victim had been out Christmas shopping with a friend in the city’s Cabot Circus shopping centre when they began talking to 21-year-old Mehrab Safi, whom they had not met before.
Safi went on to allegedly groom the 17-year-old victim on Snapchat before arranging for a taxi to take her from her home in Somerset to the Bristol address days later, in the early hours of November 30.
While at the home, the court heard the girl was given cigarettes and vodka before being allegedly raped by Safi as well as his co-defendants, Awal Ahmadzai and Salman Habibkheil, both 19, and a 16-year-old boy, who are all originally from Afghanistan, Bristol Live reports.
Prosecuting, Ed Hetherington told the jury: “The prosecution say that they sexually abused a young girl who Mr Safi had met and began grooming only days before the rapes took place.
“On November 30 last year, Mr Safi and Mr Habibkheil arranged for her to be brought by taxi to meet them in Bristol in the early hours of a Sunday morning.
“Once she arrived, she was taken to a home in St Werburghs and she was very quickly expected to have sex with Mr Safi.
“She didn’t want to, not yet, but it happened anyway.
“After Mr Safi had had sex with her, the other three men in the house took it in turns to get her alone in a bedroom or in a bed and to have sex with her against her wishes.
“While all of this was going on, she was plied with alcohol and cigarettes to secure her compliance.
“She was alone.
“She was isolated in an unfamiliar city miles from home, in the dead of night, with a house full of men she didn’t know.
“We say she was raped and she was abused repeatedly over a period of several hours.”
Mr Hetherington said the incident ended when the girl’s mother contacted police, and the girl later gave officers a full account of what she said happened.
The jury of five men and seven women heard that the girl, who was shopping with a friend, had given Safi her phone number after meeting him at the shopping centre in the city on November 25.
He later asked her to add him on the social media platform Snapchat, requesting nude photographs of her on November 28, the court heard.
In the early hours of November 30, the girl got into a taxi from her home in Somerset and travelled to Bristol to meet Safi.
She was initially dropped off in an industrial area, where Safi was waiting with Habibkheil, before they got into another taxi, which took them to a house in the St Werburghs area.
Mr Hetherington said CCTV footage showed the girl and Safi holding hands as they walked down the road.
“There’s no doubt, she thought she was visiting her new boyfriend or potential new boyfriend,” he told the jury.
After arriving at the house, the girl was told to go to his bedroom upstairs.
Safi told the girl he wanted to have sex with her, which she was expecting and replied that she would but not yet, Mr Hetherington added.
Safi allegedly asked the girl to remove her clothing six to seven times, insisting they would not have sex, but then is said to have raped her when she did so.
The girl then dressed and was brought downstairs where the other defendants were playing a video game, the court heard.
Safi, Ahmadzai and Habibkheil then fled the UK in the back of a lorry three days after the alleged incident, the jury heard.
The men were discovered by the French authorities in Calais after fleeing the house as police arrived, Mr Hetherington said.
He said mobile phone footage recovered from Safi’s phone showed the three defendants in the back of the lorry with Habibkheil making hand gestures to the camera and laughing.
“We suggest they are celebrating because they think they have got away with it”, he said.
Safi, of St Werburghs, Bristol, denies one count of human trafficking and two charges of rape.
Habibkheil, of Lockleaze, Bristol, denies one count of human trafficking and one charge of rape.
Article continues below
Ahmadzai, of Redcliffe, Bristol, denies one charge of rape and one of assault by penetration.
The 16-year-old boy also denies one charge of rape.
Their trial, in front of Judge Michael Cullum, is expected to last up to three weeks.