THREE illegal immigrants who sold a 15-year-old Lithuanian girl as a sex slave were jailed yesterday.

The girl was resold seven times, repeatedly raped and forced to work in brothels throughout Britain. She escaped only after enlisting the help of three local women at a Sheffield nightclub and ran barefoot, distressed and traumatised, to a local police station.

South Yorkshire Police were the first force in Britain to bring a prosecution under a new law designed to stop trafficking in women for sexual exploitation.

At Sheffield Crown Court, Shaban Maka, a 24-year-old Macedonian, Ilir Barjami, 25, a Kosovan, and Xhevahir Pisha, 21, an Albanian, were found guilty of trafficking the teenager, who is now 16, for sexual exploitation.

Judge Roger Keen recommended to the Home Secretary that all three should be deported after serving their sentences. He said: “Human trafficking is an international problem. It is an activity which is degrading and produces untold misery to girls throughout the world. This case has echoes of the days of slavery with a girl being sold by one procurer to another.”

In court, the 15-year-old girl told the jury about her three-month ordeal, which began after she came to Britain last summer on the promise of a holiday job.

She expected to work in a restaurant or café, but the man who accompanied her from Lithuania took her passport after they landed at Heathrow airport and introduced her to Maka, Barjami and a woman, Lina Yunel, 28, in a bar. She was sold to an Albanian for £4,000, who raped her and took her to Birmingham to work in a brothel.

She escaped, but was recaptured and taken to Coventry, where she was sold to Pisha, who paid £3,000 for her. He held her prisoner in his home, then took her to a brothel in Leicester and told her to repay him by working as a prostitute.

The girl ran away, but was recaptured again, taken to London and sold several more times to Albanian men. She was sold again for £3,000, taken to work in another brothel and finally taken to Sheffield. Barjami paid £1,500 for the girl, took her to his flat, imprisoned her and raped her repeatedly before taking her to a sauna to try to get work for her as a prostitute.

Maka, of Sheffield, was convicted of trafficking the girl into Britain and two counts of trafficking her within the country. He admitted another two counts of trafficking her within Britain for sexual exploitation. Barjami, of the same address, was found guilty of two counts of trafficking the girl into and within Britain, false imprisonment and raping the girl four times. Pisha, from Coventry, was found guilty of false imprisonment within Britain and trafficking the girl for sexual exploitation.

Ms Yunel, 28, a Lithuanian, of Sheffield, was cleared of trafficking the girl into Britain and four counts of trafficking her within the country for sexual exploitation.

Maka was jailed for eighteen years, Barjami for fifteen years and Pisha for seven years.

Over the past year, at least 40 Lithuanian women have been brought to Britain as sex slaves.

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