'Sex slavery' gang jailed in child prostitution case

A gang of human traffickers, brothel keepers and pimps received substantial jail terms yesterday over the ordeal of a teenage virgin tricked into travelling to the UK for a life of sexual "slavery".

Their Slovakian victim had cried in the dock as she described spending nearly a year-and-a-half working as a prostitute after being lured to Britain at the age of 16 with the promise of a job in a pub. She told of being sold on from owner to owner, raped by one who was never identified, beaten and threatened.

Six men received sentences of up to 14 years for what the judge called a "terrible story of betrayal".

One, Turkish-born Ali Arslan, was also involved in the plight of a second victim. He was convicted of running a brothel in Hackney, east London, where the 22-year-old woman was forced to work after leaving her six-month-old baby daughter with relatives in Lithuania, having been convinced by one of her brother's school friends that she could earn good money in a warehouse in Britain to provide her child with a better future.

London's Southwark crown court heard she was instead sold for £4,000 to a man who raped and assaulted her before putting her to work as a prostitute. He was never caught.

Slovakian Edward Facuna, 54, and Czech-born Roman Pacan, 39, both from Peterborough, were jailed for 11 years each for trafficking the Slovakian teenager into the UK for sexual exploitation.

Ali Arslan, 43, got 14 years for controlling the Hackney brothel and another in Luton where the teenager worked two years later, controlling prostitution for gain, controlling a child prostitute and trafficking the teenager within the UK for sexual exploitation.

Mesut Arslan, 26, was jailed for two-and-a-half years for brothel keeping and the child prostitution offence. He was cleared of trafficking in the UK.

Kosovan Martin Doci, 29, received 11 years for controlling child prostitution and trafficking the teenager within the UK. Albanian Valmir Gjetja, 29, was convicted of controlling prostitution and jailed for three years.

Passing sentence, Judge Martin Beddoe said what happened to the two women was "despicable and cannot be tolerated in a civilised society".

"In opening the case, prosecution counsel told the jury that slavery was alive and well, and this is what this case has essentially been about," he said.

"Each of you in your various ways was playing a role in a degrading activity producing untold misery. Human trafficking, where it exists, exploits the impoverished, the young and the socially disadvantaged."

The judge said although the court heard of only two girls being forced to prostitute themselves, Ali Arslan's brothels employed up to 50 eastern European women and almost certainly included others made to sell their bodies.

Whether willing or not, the "inescapable conclusion" was that others had been trafficked into Britain to help "line the pockets" of those involved.

The teenager, unable to speak English and in a strange country with no friends, would have been in "terrible fear" of what would happen if she didn't cooperate.

"Because of what the girls like her were made to do she became so despoiled there was no longer pain in doing as she did and she became a willing prostitute, immured to the situation and position to which she had fallen," said the judge.

He told Ali Arslan his behaviour resulted in the teenager and the older woman becoming "devastated, humiliated, violated".

DCI John Kielty, from Scotland Yard's Operation Maxim, said the convictions were a "really great result" for the Met's human trafficking team and the victims.

"These men not only abused, in some cases physically, these two women but also demonstrated how they were prepared to cynically exploit the vulnerable for profit by trafficking them into prostitution.

"It is all the more shocking given the age of one of the victims. They have showed no remorse for their actions and have forced the victims to stand up and recount these painful memories in order for justice to be done."