Dad tells vice girl jury: We were strung along

The parents of a Telford teenager spoke on the phone and exchanged texts with one of the men alleged to have sold her for sex, a court heard.

Ahdel Ali is said to have told the desperate couple he claimed to know where their daughter was on one of the many occasions she had gone missing from home.

The 24-year-old is alleged to have controlled the girl as a child prostitute and taken her to have sex with workers at several Telford restaurants.

Yesterday at Stafford Crown Court the girl's parents said four years ago they handed police a list of their daughter's phone contacts.

It included the names of Ali, whom she knew as Eddie, and his 29-year-old brother, Mubraek Ali, whom she knew as Max.

The teenager's parents told the jury at the time their daughter, then 15, had a history of staying out overnight, drinking, using cannabis, skipping school and going missing from home.

The girl's father told the court he was in contact with Eddie by phone on one occasion when his daughter went missing. "He said he was a taxi driver and that he was one of my daughter's friends. I only spoke to him once," said the girl's father.

He said Eddie had claimed another man had taken her to Stoke-on-Trent, but he said nothing Eddie said had been in any way helpful in finding his daughter.

"I wanted to meet up with Eddie, but he would not meet. We were just being strung along," he said.

The girl's father said Eddie had told him 'he was not like the rest'. Her mother said she had tried to restrict her daughter's 'constant' use of mobile phones.

"We tried to restrict access to phones, but she always managed to get one," she said. The teenager hid SIM cards and mobile phones down her bra and in her socks and handwrote a list of contact numbers.

Her mother told the court efforts had been made to get help 'from all sorts of agencies' for her daughter.

She said she was 'horrified' in July, 2009, when her daughter said she was pregnant and discovered a list of the five possible fathers of the child – which included Max and Eddie.

The Ali brothers, both of Regent Street, Wellington, deny 26 allegations relating to sexual abuse and child prostitution involving four teenage girls.

The trial continues.