Child sex abuse trial: Accused "needed to have definition of rape explained"

The woman, now 27, told police in an interview in October 2013 that Masoued Malik (32) had approached her two or three years earlier in Liquid nightclub in Rotherham.

Malik - who she called Massi - is on trial at Sheffield Crown Court for rape, false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit indecent assault along with seven other men for a range of sexual offences against the woman when she was 13.

The woman, who made the complaint against Malik to police in September 2013, told police she had been an active child sexual exploitation (CSE) campaigner, written a book about her experiences of it under a pseudonym in 2010 and had appeared in the press to talk about grooming.

She said when she was in Liquid, Malik followed her outside when she went for a cigarette and started trying to talk to her

“Then he started going on about CSE and how everybody should take a part in it and realise that we were all to blame for everything that happened,” the woman said.

“I just said: 'I'm not getting in to that conversation’ and he couldn’t understand why I would not talk to him about it.

I thought it was strange he approached me and wanted to talk about that anyway.”

The woman said she explained to Malik that if she hypothetically as an adult woman wanted to sleep with a man it did not mean that the man could bring his five friends home and they could “jump on as well” because that was rape.

The woman claimed “Massi” replied: “Well no not really because if she wanted to go home and have sex with one (man), why wouldn't she have sex with the rest?”

The woman also said that two police officers had approached her and her friends when they were 13 and hanging around the streets with older Asian males.

She added: “The police asked me and my friends for our names, date of births and addresses.

“All the lads told us to lie and said to police: ‘This is harassment’ and chucked us all in cars and drove us out of town.

“But I told police my real name, so the lads were not happy about things like that, so I think they had started  to know I was probably not playing along as well as I should be.”

The woman said she believed this was why an unknown associate of the men threatened her with a gun.

The woman, who the court has heard was known to police and social services in 2003 after reporting to police that another defendant, Sageer Hussain, had raped her, said she did not trust the police back then.

She added: “I didn't really get on well with my police officers they weren’t right nice, I had a lot of issues back then with police and things so I was cautious of what I said to them.

“I didn’t fully trust in them when I was a kid, I was frightened, I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

“When police came in and things I didn’t really understand what a big deal it was, even though I was not comfortable  

“I didn’t realise the seriousness of it, but I was scared like a rabbit in the headlights.

“I didn’ want to share certain things, I was 13, I was a girl, I had been taken advantage of in more ways than one and I didn't want people to be ashamed of me or judge me.

“I looked at it that I was the bad, wrong one, not these people.”

All eight defendants deny the charges against them. The trial continues.