Three Afghan nationals allegedly raped or abused a teenage girl and then fled the UK in the back of a lorry, a jury has been told. Mehrab Safi, 21, Awal Ahmadzai and Salman Habibkheil, both 19, were discovered by the French authorities in Calais. Bristol Crown Court heard that they left on December 3 last year – just three days after they and a 16-year-old boy attacked a 17-year-old girl.
The Alleged Attack
The jury was told the alleged attack happened days after the girl had met Safi while Christmas shopping with a friend in Bristol city centre. Safi allegedly groomed the girl on Snapchat before arranging for a taxi to take her from her home in Somerset to Bristol in the early hours of November 30.
Police traced the teenage girl to a house in the St Werberghs area of Bristol and arrested the 16-year-old defendant when he answered the door, the jury was told. At the property, the girl was provided with cigarettes and vodka, a court heard, before being allegedly raped by Safi and his co-defendants.
Prosecution's Statement
Edd Hetherington, prosecuting, said: "After Mr Safi had had sex with her, the other three men in the house took it in turns to get her alone in a bedroom or in a bed and to have sex with her against her wishes. While all of this was going on, she was plied with alcohol and cigarettes to secure her compliance. She was alone. She was isolated in an unfamiliar city miles from home, in the dead of night, with a house full of men she didn’t know. We say she was raped and she was abused repeatedly over a period of several hours."
Flight and Capture
Mr Hetherington said the three older co-accused fled the house as the police arrived and, in the aftermath, travelled to both Birmingham and London. Mobile phone analysis showed they had also searched for news items in Bristol and for information about sexual activity with a teenage girl.
The prosecutor said the three defendants were found in France without travel documents or identification, and had given fake names to the authorities. Mobile phone footage recovered from Safi’s phone showed the three defendants in the back of the lorry with Habibkheil making hand gestures to the camera and laughing. They were immediately returned to the UK under the "Gentleman’s Agreement" between the relevant authorities.
All four defendants deny the charges against them as the trial continues.
