A WOMAN was held against her will for four days, tortured and sexually and physically abused by three teenagers, jurors heard.

The 23-year-old was so badly beaten up that when she called at a house after her ordeal, someone she knew did not initially recognise her, Southampton Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Stephen Parish said: “Her face was like a football, black and blue, her hair had been shaved, she had a burn mark to her cheek and hand. She said, ‘I have been kidnapped’.”

A police officer was so shocked by her injuries at the house that he immediately summoned an ambulance.

The victim also told police how in a game of truth or dare, she had to perform an obscene act.

Darren Hodgkinson, 18, of Macarthur Crescent, Southampton, and two girls, one aged 16 and the other 14, deny two charges of causing the woman to engage in sex activity against her consent and one each of causing actual bodily harm and one of false imprisonment.

Hodgkinson also denies robbing her of a Post Office bank card.

The court heard how the woman had at first blamed her former partner for kidnapping and taking her to the house in the inner-city area. In reality, he had nothing to do with it.

She told her grandmother she had done so because Hodgkinson had threatened to kill her.

She then went back to the police and in her second account, however, said she had been out with the teenagers before going back to one of their homes when she was verbally abused and slapped across the face.

She stayed the night in a spare bed and it was the following day that the ill-treatment began, with the teenagers punching her to the face and arms and slapping her face and ears, splitting her lip.

She claimed she had nail varnish, shampoo and cream put into her hair before she was led into a bedroom where her eyebrows were shaved and chunks of her hair cut off. If she flinched, she was punched.

She was later put into a wardrobe, had her remaining hair cut off and up to four attempts were made to smash her nose. She was struck with a biscuit tin until her nose bled.

Mr Parish said what followed was “arguably the worst part of this case and demonstrates the sheer depravity of the defendants,”

involving a game of truth or dare in which she was forced to commit an obscene act.

The following day she had a finger and her face burned, her bra was ripped off and she was forced to endure another sexual act.

She was later released by the two girls.

On arrest, all three put the blame on the others, said Mr Parish.

Proceeding.