A teenager forced to have sex with strangers in a Basildon brothel has spoken of her terrifying and humiliating ordeal.

Mary Pondee from Thailand was only 16 when she was sold into prostitution after believing she was coming to England to become a maid.

However the brave girl was the only victim willing to give evidence in court against the vice ring. Three people were jailed last week for controlling and managing the brothels.

Mary, 18, said: "Sometimes I believed I would be better off dead. I was terrified I would contract HIV and AIDS and that I would die slowly in the brothel.

"Men would pay an extra £50 to have sex without a condom. The brothel owners tried to make me do it and I saw lots of other girls have sex without protection.

"I always refused to have sex without a condom but I would be screamed at and threatened with violence. I was once beaten with a rattan cane when I refused to let a man perform a particular sex act on me.

"They did not just steal my body, they robbed me of all my dignity."

Mary had hoped to send back money to her poor family in Thailand. Instead she was told that she would have to pay the £22,000 "costs" of bringing her to England before she would be freed. With the brothel taking half of everything she earned, she needed to sleep with hundreds of men to make the £44,000 she needed.

Mary was forced to work at several brothels, but was at one in Bridgecote Lane in Basildon when the vice squad busted the ring in September last year.

Mary has now returned to Thailand but cannot return to her family farm for fear of retribution.

Published Monday, June 9, 2003

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