Child sex abuse trial: Alleged victim messaged accused "to use him"

The woman (28) is the second female complainant to give evidence at Sheffield Crown Court, where eight men are on trial for sexual offences.

Defendant Ishtiaq Khaliq (33) is charged with two counts of indecently assaulting the woman between 1999-2000 when she was aged 13 or 14.

The woman told police in September 2014 that she had felt under pressure to perform sex acts on Khaliq two or three times when she was a teenager in Clifton Park’s Love Garden.

She said in her interview that when she was younger, she started hanging around with Asian men and knew the defendant as Ishy.

She added: “The group was not particularly older than us.

“I was 13 when I first met them."

The court heard she had thought Khaliq was “nice and good-looking” and would ask her to go for a walk in the park, put her hand on his crotch and ask her to perform a sex act.

“I remember saying sometimes, ‘I don't want to do it I don't like it’, but he would talk you round,” she said.

“He never forced me, he was not that much older than us.”

The woman told police in the 2014 interview that two years earlier the defendant had added her on Facebook and had asked her to meet him.

Ms Elaine Stapleton, defending Khaliq, said social services had taken a list of names from her phone when she was aged 13 to 14 and there was an Ishy listed.

But the barrister claimed the woman had identified the wrong man 16 years later at a police ID parade in August 2015, which she disagreed with.

Ms Stapleton then produced a document of a Facebook conversation from August 2011 which showed the woman had tried to engage in conversation with Khaliq.

The barrister claimed this was where the woman knew his name from.

The Facebook chat began with the woman asking why Khaliq had unfriended her and if he wanted to meet up.

When he didn’t respond she asked him again several days later.

Ms Stapleton said Khaliq responded online with “bye”, to which the woman wrote in response: “Going to block you again, you're a p***k”.

The woman told the court she had forgotten about the conversation and had only contacted Khaliq to get him to take her shopping, saying that “because of some stuff that’s happened in the past I just wanted to use him”.

She added: “I know that's bad, but I just did.”

The woman said she had blocked Khaliq once before on Facebook because he used to harass her with sexual messages and had not told police about the 2011 conversation because she wasn't asked about it.

Khaliq denies all the charges.

The trial continues.