Girl, 14, held prisoner by 3 men, plied with drugs and forced to have sex 'with 20 punters'

Three men have been found guilty of holding a 14-year-old girl prisoner, plying her with drugs, holding her captive and then forcing her into prostitution.

The disgusting trio, Jake Cairns, Brandon Sharples and Jack McInally, all from Coventry, held the child for five days, making her have sex with up to 20 people, and even advertised her on an adult sex website.

The gang posted explicit photos of the teenager on adult contact site Viva Street and advertised the teen as an 18-year-old, in June 2015.

Warwick Crown Court heard how, when the girl was located by West Midlands Police, she was found in her underwear trying to climb out of a first-floor bathroom.

Cairns, 21, from Radford, Sharples, 20, from Radford, and McInally, 21, of no fixed address, were found guilty of facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child.

Cairns was also found guilty of arranging child sexual exploitation and taking and distributing indecent images of a child.

All three were remanded in custody and will be sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on 8 January.

The abduction was looked into by police after a relative of the child in Coventry reported the girl had gone missing.

The Coventry Telegraph reported that the girl disappeared from a relative's home and investigators tracked the girl, who cannot be named due to legal reasons, to an address in Radford.

Cairns, McInally and Sharples were arrested at the property and DNA discovered on a duvet in a room, where she was forced to have sex, came from five different sources, including Cairns.

Detectives found an email address linking Cairns to the Viva Street advert that was posted without the girl's face being visible, but showing a unique necklace belonging to the girl.

Detective Constable Jon Barker, from West Midlands Police, said: "These three men were involved with the shocking exploitation of a young girl - they took advantage of her drug dependency and made money out of forcing her to have sex with strangers.

"Cairns initially denied knowing the girl, but later changed his story after he was identified during an ID procedure - and our financial enquiries showed he'd paid for the Viva Street advert via his own bank account.

"Now that a jury has found them guilty they can expect to be handed long jail terms."