Black Country sex ring: Seven men jailed after family home used as 'paedophile brothel'

The father and uncle of two of the victims were behind the appalling sex trade in the Black Country, which was run from the family home, but both died before justice could catch up with them.

The men regularly assaulted the older of the two sisters and encouraged other men to rape and sexually assault her as she was forced to endure eight years of attacks from the age of six.

She was also abused by her grandfather and brother while her mother lied to social workers to protect the perpetrators and allow the family to continue its debauched lifestyle, which revolved around drinking, sex and violence.

The victim’s grandfather, now aged 65, committed sexual offences against the older girl for years in a ‘repeated and routine’ way, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

Mr Steven Bailey, prosecuting, said: “This was sustained and repetitive offending over a number of years by somebody she ought to have been able to trust.”

The grandfather was jailed for 19 years by Judge Simon Ward who told him: “You knew she loved you and you abused this just to satisfy your own sexual urges, raping her numerous times when she was a child.”

A ‘customer,’ who repeatedly raped one of the victims and sexually touched another, was also locked up for 19 years.

Some of the rapes took place at his house after the girl was taken to the address for that specific purpose. She was even abused by her own brother who was jailed for eight years.

She started being used as a sexual plaything at the age of six, the court heard. Another of the ‘customers,’ now aged 27, but 19 at the time of his offences, was jailed for 14 years. A third, who twice sexually assaulted one of the girls, was locked up for five years.

Two other defendants, ruled to be unfit to plead, received hospital orders, with restrictions that mean they cannot be released without the permission of the Secretary of State.

Social workers were supposedly keeping an eye on the family, whose identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons, but did not realise the full horror of what was going on until it was too late after the mother repeatedly lied to them to cover up for the girl’s violent father and uncle.

At one stage the victim and her sister, who was also abused, ran away from foster parents but returned to the family home, and more abuse, because it was ‘the only place they knew,’ the court heard.

Judge Ward said the family home was ‘operated as a paedophile brothel.’