Overview
- Six relatives deny 41 charges including raping a child, sexual assaults, actual bodily harm, false imprisonment, child cruelty and perverting the course of justice.
- The alleged abuse began when the girl was about six and continued until she was 12, with prosecutors alleging the mother inflicted earlier physical assaults and failed to protect her.
- Jurors were told the mother allegedly gagged, tied and locked the child in a cupboard and that she beat and burned her, including using salt on wounds.
- Specific allegations include repeated rapes and assaults by the father, abuse and rapes by two brothers, and sexual abuse by the grandfather.
- The girl disclosed her home life to a teacher before the family’s January arrests; she later recanted some physical-abuse claims in police interviews, which prosecutors attribute to family pressure on bail, while maintaining the sexual-abuse allegations as the trial continues at Lewes (Hove) Crown Court.