Next to the witness box was the dock where all the defendants were lined up. There was supposed to be a curtain pulled across the partition between the witness box and the dock to spare me from having to look at the ugly faces lined up inside it. It wasn’t pulled back far enough, however, and, as soon as I walked in to sit down, I got a full view of the men on trial. I saw Mohammed sitting back casually, looking up at the ceiling. Panicked, I jumped backwards to get out of their line of vision. As I did so, I knocked into the usher who had shown me to my place. Another usher came running across the room and pulled the curtain closed. I stood still and breathed deeply before I sat down.
The first stage in my evidence was cross-examination by the prosecution solicitor. He was basically on my side and it was his job to ask me about all the details of the case. His name was Noel Lucas. He was in his fifties and broad, he wore a white wig and a black gown and to me he looked like Mr Toad from Wind in the Willows. His questioning was not confrontational. It was his job to ask me questions that would allow me to tell my story. He let it be known that if, at any point, I felt it was all too much then I could stop. This point was reiterated by the judge.
‘I am going to ask you a few questions about the horrific abuse you suffered at the hands of these defendants,’ said Noel, gesturing towards the men behind the curtain. ‘Is that OK with you, Lara?’
‘Yes,’ I said as clearly as my nerves would allow.
Noel started by talking to me about my early life and about when I met Mum. He described my life with my birth parents as a very abusive, neglectful background and explained that when I first moved to Oxford I was a relatively normal and happy child who had come from a difficult background. Then he described how I had met Mohammed and asked me questions about the months leading up to when he gave me drugs. I had to go through my statements and relate them to each defendant. Then I was given a folder full of evidence: it was awful because it contained pictures of me that I had forgotten about. There were photographs of me when I first met the gang; I was just a child and, when I looked at them, I was overcome with anger and sadness because I realised what the men had stolen from that poor innocent girl in the pictures. There were also photographs taken of the injuries I’d sustained after Bassam raped and assaulted me.
I was made to relive all the events – the rape, the trafficking, the barbecues, the heroin overdose. As each shocking detail was introduced, I felt myself get stronger. It was the first time I had ever been given the opportunity to tell my side of the story in public and gradually I felt a weight lifting from me. I spoke up when I answered the questions because I wanted the men to hear what they had done to me; it was a horrific list of abuse. I wanted the court to know what had happened to me, and what the suspects were capable of.
At certain points there were gasps from the jury, particularly when details were given about the rape in the Nanford. At one point, I looked at the jurors and one of the men in the front row was crying. I was very open and honest – I explained that I was no angel and that I had been vile to my mum, I was abusive and aggressive. I admitted I did drugs in the past, but explained that still did not excuse what was done to me.
Occasionally the proceedings were adjourned, usually after an objection from one of the defence barristers. There were so many tactics in play that I wasn’t aware of. Both sides would have done deals about what questions could and couldn’t be asked, what would and wouldn’t be challenged, and each time there was an adjournment I assumed some other deal was being struck. At points it seemed choreographed – they flounced around theatrically in their gowns. After Noel had talked me through my evidence, he handed me over to the prosecution. There were nine men in the dock and my evidence directly related to five of them, which meant I was cross-examined by five different defence QCs. The men were Bassam, Anjam, Mohammed, Ahktar and another man, who was eventually convicted of two counts of sexual activity with a child but not for offences relating to me. The first was very simple: I was only asked whether I was sure the person I had given evidence about was the person in court. I confirmed it was.
After the first day I was confident I had given a good account of myself. Court finished and I went back to the safe house for the night and then travelled home to see Noah the following day. He had laid out the table like a restaurant and made a sign above it. We had a big roast dinner together and talked about normal family stuff – it felt good to put the case to one side and get on with normal life. I was needed in court on the Monday so the following afternoon I had to leave again but it was hard to tear myself away from my son. He was very stand-offish and I couldn’t blame him. I told myself that, once the trial had finished, I would be able to start my life properly.
‘Mummy will be back soon and I promise I won’t go away again after that,’ I soothed him. He didn’t say anything but his body language said it all.
Paul and Ollie came to collect me and drove Graham and me back to London. Mum stayed home for an extra day. We decided it would be better for Noah to have her there for as long as possible. I psyched myself up for more of the defence case – I knew it wasn’t all going to be an easy ride. Mohammed and Bassam were both out to try to ruin my reputation. I slept fitfully only to be told the following morning that I wouldn’t be needed that day after all. I had a day to kick around and think about things so Graham decided to arrange something to take my mind off things.
‘Let’s go and get tattoos,’ he suggested.
I laughed. He was covered in them. I’d had a couple over the years but wasn’t against having any more.
‘I don’t know…’ I hesitated.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’ll mark the end of something and the start of your new life.’
I agreed and called Mum to tell her about the plan. She reluctantly agreed and suggested that perhaps I should have a design with a barrister’s wig with an arrow through it. Instead, I had a butterfly to signify freedom from the past and transformation.
Mum came back down that night with her brother, Michael, and we went to a lovely fish restaurant for dinner.
The difficult cross-examination began in earnest the next day when the defence tried to discredit me and trash Mum. They asked me leading questions about her and the boundaries she set for me, and tried to imply that she had let me run off and was too lenient.
I got angry.
‘She worked bloody hard to get me safe, don’t you dare try and blame her!’ I shot back.
They said that I obviously wasn’t close to her, otherwise I wouldn’t have behaved in the way I did. Then they started to question my relationship with Noah. I knew they were trying to unsettle me and so I did my best to stay calm but I was still very annoyed.
I got strength when I looked over at the jury and saw their faces. They looked just as appalled as I was at the line of questioning.
At one stage, I was speaking about Spider, explaining he was an evil man and that I wasn’t scared of him anymore. Suddenly, I heard raised voices and banging. It sounded like something was happening in the dock. Adrenaline surged through me. I looked over at the judge and saw him jump up from his seat. Then I heard movement and so I panicked – I thought someone was coming to get me. I couldn’t see the dock or the public gallery. I stood up and bolted out the door behind me, clattering into the witness services lady who was with me.
‘It’s OK, calm down,’ she said as she held my shoulders. ‘It’s in the court next door – it’s safe in here.’
But I was petrified and shaking. Some sort of commotion had broken out in the adjoining room. I had to take a short break to calm my nerves.
The defence took three days and it was exhausting; the barristers asked question after question. Several of them asked the same questions as the ones before. But each night I felt stronger and tried not to dwell on the events of the day. We had a meal or we watched a film in the house and tried to keep things as normal as we could.
In court I wasn’t scared of the gang anymore. When I heard
their defences I thought they were pathetic. Hearing the ridiculous stories they came up with made me realise just how weak they were and what cowards they were for putting me and the other victims through the ordeal of a trial. Halfway through I had the urge to take the curtains down and look at them.
In the witness box, I could hear them. They were about 10ft away and they coughed and fidgeted.
Mohammed’s barrister was a woman and she implied that I was a racist because all the defendants were Muslims. It was a laughable claim: after all, I had a mixed-race son.
Bassam’s defence barrister was a man called Mark Milliken-Smith. I don’t care if I never see him again. He questioned me about the rape and tried to contest that I had lied about it, despite the recording of the phone call to the police from the man who had heard the attack that was played in court and the pictures of my injuries. He constantly brought up the fact that I had dropped the case; he became provocative and suggested Bassam couldn’t have raped me because he couldn’t get an erection, even though his DNA was there.
‘I suggest you were telling lie upon lie because you’d been caught by police naked in a hotel room with a man you were not supposed to be with. At no stage were you struck by him at all. That is a lie. You were not punched to the face or body,’ he pushed.
‘No, that’s a lie,’ I argued.
‘Not at any stage did he threaten you that he was going to kill you, or words to that effect? You cried rape, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t cry rape. I was raped,’ I told the court.
I kept crying; it was excruciatingly uncomfortable.
Being called a liar when I knew I was right and the details were true was hard. Everything was thrown at me. At one stage, my commitment to Noah was called into question and it was suggested I didn’t care for him.
I stood.
‘Do you really think it is that easy for me to stand here and admit to you all that I don’t know how many drugs I have done and how many people I have had sex with?’ I stated.
The defence closed with Bassam and the last thing Milliken-Smith uttered was that he hoped he hadn’t upset me.
The judge then said, ‘You may go now,’ and that was it; the ordeal was over. I breathed a sigh of relief and left the court.
Mum’s evidence was equally compelling. Carefully, and eloquently, she explained about the fears she had had every time I went missing. She was always scared someone would call to inform her I was dead. She explained that she had lived with the constant thought that one day she would have to identify my body before she even got to know me. No one had any idea what she went through, least of all me.
My evidence gave way to girl four and I followed the case online when I returned home and tried to get on with my life. It became obvious to me straight away that she was my friend from Oxford. The confirmation that she had been involved hit me hard. She too was groomed and sold by Mohammed but she had it worse than anyone: her abuse began when she was 11. She had been branded with a hot iron by Mohammed so people would know she belonged to him. She was raped by Mohammed and Bassam and forced to be gang raped. When she was 12, Mohammed had got her pregnant and had taken her to a backstreet clinic for an illegal abortion. Her treatment was horrific. She was a good friend for a long time but I had no idea it was happening to her, too – I had never seen her with any of the men. Out of everything that happened at the trial that was the most upsetting of all, finding out the details of what one of my closest friends had been through. She had moved away when I went to the secure unit and we had lost contact; she gave evidence by video link.
Three weeks after I gave evidence the case ended. Everyone on the prosecution team was confident there would be convictions. The case against the men was strong and the evidence from each of us girls had been compelling and harrowing. There was no denying the same pattern had been followed each time: we had all come from similar backgrounds, we had been befriended, manipulated and brainwashed before being abused repeatedly and violently.
Once the case was wrapped up and the jury sent out, Mum scanned the internet constantly for news. We knew that after 3.30pm each day we were unlikely to hear as the court shut at that time. We were advised by the police to arrange a safe place we could go to at short notice once the verdict had been delivered, as there was a possibility that we would be approached by journalists and of reprisals because of the sensitive nature of the case. Some reporters had already been to the house and Mum had seen them off – I don’t know how they got our address. I was warned it could take weeks to reach a verdict but in reality it took the jury just two and a half days to reach a decision.
It was late afternoon on 14 March 2013 and after hearing nothing all day I took the dogs for a walk and left my phone at home. I’d been out for some time and when I got home Mum practically fell on me when I walked through the door.
She was breathless.
‘Where have you been? I thought you’d been kidnapped!’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, confused.
‘They’re guilty, all of them!’ she shrieked.
‘Who?’ I frowned.
‘The men, they’ve all been found guilty!’
I screamed and jumped up and down. We hugged, laughed and cried. I felt ecstatic – they had been found guilty on all charges.
Akhtar Dogar, 32, of Tawney Street, Oxford, was found guilty of five counts of rape, three counts of conspiracy to rape, two counts of child prostitution and one count of trafficking. Anjum Dogar, 31, of Tawney Street, Oxford, was found guilty of three counts of rape, two counts of child prostitution, three counts of conspiracy to rape and one count of trafficking. Mohammed Karrar, 38, of Kames Close, Oxford, was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to rape, four counts of rape of a child, one count of using an instrument to procure miscarriage, two counts of trafficking, one count of assault of a child by penetration, two counts of child prostitution, three counts of rape, two counts of conspiracy to rape a child and one count of supplying a Class A drug. Bassam Karrar, 33, of Hundred Acres Close, Oxford, was found guilty of two counts of rape, one count of rape of a child, two counts of conspiracy to rape a child, two counts of child prostitution, one count of trafficking and one count of conspiracy to rape.
Two other men, also part of the gang, were convicted. One was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child and the other was found guilty of five counts of rape, two counts of conspiracy to rape and one count of arranging child prostitution.
We barely had time to collect our thoughts before we realised we needed to leave the house. I was caught between the jubilation of the verdict and the worry that once again I had to take Noah away from his home to protect him. Although the men were now safely behind bars until their sentencing, their actions still cast a shadow over my life.
We went away for two nights and had the rolling news on as we watched the details being covered. Again and again the bulletins showed mugshots of the men.
In between the case closing and the verdict I had done an anonymous interview with the BBC and that night I went to the Co-op to buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate. The radio was on in the shop and my interview was being broadcast; it was surreal and unsettling. As I handed over the money I didn’t speak in case the cashier recognised my voice.
I put Noah to bed as normal and told him that we had to go away for a few days because the judge had got the bad men – he seemed pleased. Then I got tipsy with Mum. We cried, we laughed as we watched the news and then I went to bed.
Sentencing was three weeks later and during that time I got on with my life. I tried not to think about what the men would get. I would have been disappointed if it were only a few months but for me the triumph was that they had been found guilty and that, finally, it was acknowledged that a grave wrong had been done to me.
There were all kinds of recriminations brewing. The police came under criticism for not doing enough to investigate the crimes as and when they were happening and Oxford C
ouncil came under massive criticism for not doing enough. A serious case review was ordered and there were calls for resignations.
I went along to see the men being sentenced because I wanted closure. The Old Bailey was packed and the hearing needed two courtrooms because there had been so many people involved in the trial. There were barristers, police officers and journalists; the public gallery was full. I sat next to the dock in between Mum and WPC Jane Crump.
Disappointingly, Mohammed wasn’t there – he was too cowardly to come out of his cell. It’s a shame he was allowed to hide away. I would have liked to have seen the look on his face when he realised how long he was going to be sent down for. Sentencing took about an hour and a half. The judge went through every charge, every girl’s statement and every parent’s statement. People were crying as he read out the details.
As the sentences were read out Jane squeezed my hand so tight, I thought she was going to break it.
Judge Rook told the men they had committed ‘exceptionally grave crimes’ and that the depravity they had shown was extreme. He praised us witnesses for our courage in giving evidence. Then he told the men: ‘There can be no doubt that you have blighted lives and robbed them of their adolescence.
‘Each of the six young girls has shown enormous courage in coming to the Old Bailey to give evidence, knowing they would be accused of lying, knowing they would have to relive their ordeals and knowing they have not been believed before. The jury has found they have come to the court to tell the truth.’
Akhtar and Anjum were both given life sentences and were told they would serve a minimum of 17 years each before being considered for release. I had to double-check I had heard correctly. As sentence was passed on Mohammed and Bassam, I held my breath: they were also given life sentences. Mohammed was told he would serve a minimum of 20 years and Bassam 15 years before they would be considered for release.
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