Jackie is fixed to the computer screen, scrolling through pictures and profiles of her daughter’s 122 “friends”. There are three girls who, like Mandy, 16, are white, young and blonde. The rest of the pictures show young men, with nicknames such as Ginger and Naz. There are enough photos of shiny cars to make a boy racer proud.

“Here’s a toast 2 us,” writes Mandy on the social networking website. “For the men who have us, the losers who had us, and the lucky b*stards who will meet us.”

This is now the only contact Jackie has with her daughter, who, two years ago, became seduced by men who gave her presents and compliments, in exchange for sexual favours among their extended network of brothers, cousins and friends. She had just celebrated her 14th birthday.

Like other mothers in the North West area, Jackie believes the ethnicity of her daughter’s abusers – predominantly Asian – makes the subject more difficult to tackle.

She said: “They are committing a crime; it doesn’t matter what colour or religion they are. People are scared it will start a race riot but it is this perception of racism that is putting up a barrier. It is so frustrating. Why should it be swept under the carpet? This is destroying people’s lives. They need prosecuting.”

It started with some new female friends – Asian girls whom Mandy got to know. Within a year, she had accelerated through the pattern of truancy and drug-taking into full-scale sexual exploitation.

“She began wearing low-cut tops, and horrible heavy make-up,” Jackie recalled.

Then came the drugs. “She would come home from school, her eyes rolling, pupils dilated.”

The socialising took place in the park, the railway station, the street corner. Mandy, once a normal chatty schoolgirl, became a stranger whom her mother would glimpse circling the local shopping centre, accompanied by more than a dozen Asian boys aged from 14 into their twenties.

Then she began to disappear, at first for hours, then days and nights. Finally, her mother would learn later, she would end up in certain houses in predominantly Asian neighbourhoods.

“They call them slag dens,” said Jackie.

Presents, including jewellery, make-up and a string of new mobile phones, were soon followed by bruises and threatening phone calls. Jackie recalls how her daughter began wearing a dressing gown during the day to cover any telltale marks of abuse.

After many late-night collections from the police station and countless calls to social services, Jackie managed to intercept an explicit call from one of the men. She pretended to be her daughter. It was only then that she discovered the extent of the sexual abuse. “It made me sick. When I told them who they were speaking to,” she said, her words slowing in disbelief, “they just laughed.”

Mandy’s case is typical of the grooming patterns developing across the country. Insecure about her weight and lacking in self-esteem, she was particularly vulnerable, her mother believes, to the compliments of the handsome young men, mistaking their attention for affection. On the walls of the living room in a neat, red-brick terraced house, family photographs show the teenager smiling with her sisters.

The self-harming scars lining her forearms are just about visible if you know where to look.

Jackie said: “I tried to explain they were just using her. But these men are so manipulative. They have these girls like puppets on a string. They genuinely think these guys are in love with them.”

It has been more than a year since Mandy has been in foster care near by. Her ties within the “grooming” network are stronger than ever.

“That girl,” says her mother, pointing to someone apparently even younger than her daughter, “was groomed by Mandy.

“The girls all have the same look on their faces. They are blank, like their souls are lost somewhere.”

With this exception of an occasional e-mail, Jackie has no contact with her daughter. The family have had to move house, claiming intimidation by members of the grooming network. The successful prosecution of Hussain and Naveed, she says, “is a start, but it has come too late for my daughter”.

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