A SCHOOLGIRL was repeatedly raped and forced to have sex with other men after being threatened she would have her throat slit if she refused, a court heard.

Jarnal Singh is said to have befriended the teenager and drove to the care home she was in to pick her up in his car or van before carrying out the abuse.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Mr Singh, now 41, was in his early 20s when the events are alleged to have happened in Middlesbrough and Stockton.

On one occasion, he took the girl to a bedsit where his cousin Hardev Singh carried out the rape, prosecutor Christine Egerton, said.

Hardev Singh, then in his 30s and now 59, is said to have been one of three men – two unknown – who had sex with the youngster at a house in Stockton.

Miss Egerton said a second girl was taken to a Stockton house at around the same time when she was told by Jarnal Singh that he “wanted her to do business”.

She told the jury of eight men and five women: “The prosecution say the case you are about to hear is a case which concerns child sexual exploitation.”

A complaint was made to police in June 2014 when one of the alleged victims said she had seen a video of Hardev Singh on Youtube and recognised him.

She later picked him out in an identity parade, while the second accuser identified Jarnal Singh from a line-up of men, said Miss Egerton.

The girl who claims she was raped by Jarnal Singh in his car and van, and indecently assaulted by him, became pregnant and had his daughter, the jury heard.

In an interview with police, he claimed he had once met a stranger in a nightclub and had sex with her in the toilets, but did not know his accuser.

He insisted he had never been to her care home, and thought the person he met in the Maddison nightclub in Middlesbrough was older than she would have been.

Hardev Singh told police he had lived in Thornaby, near Stockton, for years, accepted he was the person in the Youtube clip, but did not know his accuser.

Jarnal Singh, of Stoneleigh Avenue, Middlesbrough, denies five charges of rape, one of indecent assault and one of procuring a woman to become a common prostitute.

It is alleged that on her first attack, the girl was driven to a spot in Acklam, Middlesbrough, where Mr Singh threatened to slit her throat before pinning her down.

Miss Egerton said he raped the youngster and told her “she had better come the next day . . . meaning that she had better work for him as a prostitute”.

Hardev Singh, of Mansfield Avenue, Thornaby, denies two charges of rape. On the occasions he is alleged to have had sex with the girl, his cousin is charged with rape for taking her there.

The trial continues.