Nine men of Pakistani and Afghan descent were convicted Tuesday for participating in a child sex ring in a case that touched off deep sensitivities about race in Britain and galvanized the far right.

Prosecutors had told a jury that the men plied young, vulnerable girls -- many of whom were white -- with drugs and alcohol and then passed them around for sex. The girls -- some as young as 13 years old -- were assaulted, raped and sometimes forced to have sex with several men a day.

“The details of the offenses that we have heard in this trial in the last few weeks have shocked and appalled us all,” said Nazi Afzal, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West Area. “No child should ever be exploited in the way these young victims were.”

The race of the perpetrators and their victims was repeatedly brought to the fore. Of the men, several were born in Pakistan, one was born in Afghanistan, and all are of South Asian ethnicity. Their ages ranged from 22 to the 59-year-old alleged ringleader.

When the trial began Feb. 6, hundreds of supporters of the right-wing British National Party and English Defence League staged a protest outside the court. The case delayed by two weeks when two nonwhite barristers were attacked outside the court by far-right protesters and forced to quit the case.

(AP)