Oxford grooming gang members handed life sentences

Three men who groomed and sexually abused an Oxford schoolgirl have been handed life sentences.

Anjum Dogar, 37, Mohammed Karrar, 44, and his 39-year-old brother Bassam, were convicted of 10 charges, including conspiracy to rape.

The abuse was carried out between 2002 and 2005. All three are already serving life sentences for similar offences.

Sentencing them at Oxford Crown Court, Judge Peter Ross said the group treated their victim as "a sexual tool".

She said she was raped by Dogar and Mohammed Karrar in 2004 at the age of 15 and fell pregnant. She later had an abortion.

The three men were also part of a violent sex grooming ring convicted in 2013 of abusing six girls from Oxford over an eight-year period, which came to light after a police operation codenamed Bullfinch.

The jury reached unanimous verdicts last year for further offences including indecent assault, conspiracy to rape, and rape, after a three-week trial.

Prosecutor Oliver Saxby QC said the victim was "a lonely, vulnerable young girl" who was given "somewhere to hang out".

The men plied her with alcohol and drugs and told her to perform sex acts in flats, parks and parked cars around Oxford.

The victim, who was 14 when she first met her abusers, said the abuse she suffered was "horrific".

She said: "They destroy lives. They tear your confidence away, make you feel dirty and used and betrayed.

"They come across as friends and then they destroy you, and it's disgusting."

Mohammed Karrar will now serve a minimum of 18 years, his brother Bassam will serve a minimum of 10 years, and Dogar will serve a minimum of 20.