A 14-year-old girl was “plied with alcohol” before being raped in a backyard tent while another child “looked on helplessly”, a jury has heard.

The victim took the stand on the opening day of a trial against four men, who were aged 21, 21, 20 and 19 at the time of the alleged offence in Sandys on July 27 last year.

The four have each denied charges of serious sexual assault. One, aged 21, faces an additional charge of procuring an unlawful carnal connection by giving the victim alcohol “in order to stupefy or overpower her”.

Neither the accused nor their victim can be identified for legal reasons.

The girl told the Supreme Court she met the first of her assailants via Facebook, where he was able to freely access picture of her in modelling poses.

Crown counsel Maria Sofianos told the jury that the victim was subsequently contacted by the man on Friday, July 26, 2013, while she was staying with a friend, also 14.

The two had gone shopping in Hamilton to get ready for the Cup Match holiday.

The victim’s friend began to receive messages on her phone via WhatsApp from a man identifying himself as one of the accused, who was known to both girls, and who “invited the girls to come and chill at his house” in Sandys, Ms Sofianos said.

In one text, he told the victim he would “pick you up and drop you off like a real gentleman”.

“You’re in good hands,” he added.

They did not take the man up on his invitation that night, but were contacted by him the next day.

The girls had decided to go swimming that evening, and agreed at 10pm to meet with the man to go to the beach. He and another defendant arrived to collect them on motorcycles.

According to Ms Sofianos, the girls were “surprised” to be taken to the residence of the first accused, instead of the beach. They were taken to the yard, where a group of “six to seven men” was socialising.

It was there that the girl was sexually assaulted by the four accused men, the court was told.

Ms Sofianos said the victim informed police about the incident later that night and an investigation commenced.

Early the following morning, the four men were arrested at the residence of the accused.

The jury also heard that all four are linked by DNA evidence to the sexual assault.

Taking the stand yesterday, the victim said the two girls had been picked up by the first of the accused, along with a co-accused, following a text exchange on her friend’s phone.

Instead of going to Warwick Long Bay, they were brought to the accused man’s residence, where he told the victim to tell his mother she was 17, the girl said.

They joined the group of men in an open tent on the lawn behind the house, where the girl said she was able to see the mother of the accused in the kitchen.

Although she sat on her own chair, the accused “had me stand up and sit on his lap”, she said, adding: “He grabbed me by the waist.”

She said the accused turned her to face him and that they kissed, but that she declined when he asked her if she wanted to go up to his room.

A bottle of liquor was passed around, and she was told “just drink it”, the girl said, adding: “I said I wouldn’t, because I’m under age. He held it to my mouth.” She said cannabis was also being passed around.

Feeling “dizzy” from the alcohol, the girl recalled being touched from behind by an unidentified man while she was sitting in the accused man’s lap.

She recounted being grabbed and placed facedown on the beach chair where she was sexually assaulted, the court was told.

“I told them to stop,” she said in court, adding that she called to her friend for help but couldn’t hear her.

She said she was sexually assaulted by two of the other men before collapsing to the ground.

The victim, who was crying, said she managed to retrieve her clothes, and left the residence with her friend to wait at the bus stop.

The first accused came to her and asked if he could hug her — at which, she said: “I pushed him away.”

The victim told the court that at no time had she consented to any of the sex acts performed on her while she was intoxicated.

After contacting her friend’s sister for help, the victim said she was taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, where she reported being raped — but was told at the hospital’s front desk to go to Hamilton Police Station first.

Officers brought her back to the hospital for an examination, which included swabbing her for DNA samples.

Questioned by defence lawyer Richard Horseman, representing the first of the accused, the victim told the court she’d known him only via Facebook for “a couple of months”.

Mr Horseman asked her why she hadn’t asked the accused to stop the bike once she realised they were being taken to Sandys instead of Warwick Long Bay.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

The lawyer asked how she would respond if she heard testimony from her friend to the effect that she “wasn’t going to have oral sex” that night, to which the victim replied: “I didn’t say that.”

She told Mr Horseman she’d first encountered his client via Facebook, where he had seen pictures of her “modelling”.

“Would it be correct that in the pictures you tried to make yourself look a bit older?” he asked her.

She answered: “Not necessarily older — but I posed.”

The trial continues today.