IN the shadows of a grimy tower block, the baying mob swarmed all over the sobbing schoolgirl like feral dogs-and savagely stole her childhood.

Again, and again, and again, they took turns to violate her 14-year-old innocence at knifepoint. There were 19 of them.

As she shrunk into a ball pleading for mercy, she was frog-marched round the grim east London estate in a two-hour display of depravity that shook all Britain.

Today, cuddling a pink teddy bear from her toddler years in the police safe house that has become her world, the young gang rape victim tells the terrifying story to the News of the World.

"They punched me, kicked me, smashed my head against the wall, stripped me and slammed me onto my back," says the girl we are calling Jane to protect her identity. "More gang members were arriving by the minute. They were loud and jeering.

"They asked me if I was a virgin. When I told them I was, they laughed and said I wasn't going to be one any more."

And so began the ordeal that would change Jane's life forever. In BROAD DAYLIGHT, she was dragged around THREE different locations and repeatedly attacked.

At least FIVE passing witnesses turned their faces the other way while the 19 gang-members aged between 13 to 16 fell upon their prey.

Earlier this month nine of the adolescent savages were convicted of kidnapping and raping Jane.

Trigger

The spark for their monstrous brutality was a simple schoolgirl remark she made to a pal, telling her she was right to think about ditching her boyfriend.

But that boyfriend was a member of a notorious gang called The Kingshold Boys in Hackney-and when what Jane had said was reported back to him her fate was sealed.

"The ring leader's girl and I were schoolfriends," says Jane. "I said I didn't think he was right for her. But she told him what I'd said."

Jane shivers with fear in her chair in the safe house she rarely leaves. She has become a virtual prisoner here because of post-traumatic stress disorder. The physical scars have healed but the fear remains.

It is evident in her voice as she relives, in her own words, the chilling nightmare that began in March 2007.

"I bumped into her boyfriend after our chat and he accused me of trying to break up his relationship," she said. "He went to hit me but a lad with him stopped him. I was very frightened. Soon people were telling me the gang were going to get me.

"The day it happened I was walking home from my cousin's after school. As I turned the corner, the ring leader was waiting with three friends.

"They pinned me to a fence. Then the leader put me in a headlock and told me I was coming with them."

Jane was marched into a block of flats on the rundown Parkside estate yards from her home. She was hurled under the stairs and ordered to perform oral sex on all four youths.

"One of the gang pulled out a knife and told me if I didn't do what they wanted, they would stab me up. They were pushing it into my throat. I was crying and pleading with them. At that point, a lady walked past us in the flats and I made a run for it. But the leader came after me. He struck me hard on the head, put me in a headlock again and started dragging me down the road."

At that moment she could have been saved the horror that lay ahead at the next location, a small block of flats in Skipworth Road.

"It was so obvious I was in distress," she says. "I was crying, in a headlock and surrounded by four boys. But on the way we passed a father with two children and another two men. None of them came to help. They just looked the other way.

Knife

"I was taken up the stairs of the next block to a first-floor landing. They threw me into a corner and again the sex acts started. They told me they would kill me if I didn't.

"Then one of them, who had a bike with him, told me to take off my tracksuit bottoms or he'd put me in hospital. I was shaking so hard. I was only just gone 14. Mum had only just started letting me go out close to home on my own. When I wouldn't take my bottoms off, the ring leader punched me in the eye while the others kicked my legs and lower body.

"Then the bike boy slammed me onto the concrete floor on my back and, as the others held me down, he raped me.

"One of them was trying to video it on his mobile. I was crying because it was hurting so much-but the ring leader just laughed."

Then came another chance to save her-a woman walked past them into one of the flats.

"They threw a jacket over me and told me to shut up as she went past. Then they said I could go. I pulled my tracksuit bottoms on and ran. But they were playing with me-they ran after me and caught me."

Battered

Now battered Jane was dragged to a 10-storey tower block on the grim Frampton Estate. She says: "More gang members arrrived. All of them were on their phones calling others up. They were surrounding me, laughing and whooping. They were like a pack of hunting dogs."

Along came the fourth witness to abandon Jane to her fate.

"We went past a woman and she mouthed to me, 'Are you all right?' I shook my head and I know she saw the fear in my eyes. I thought she would get help-but she never did.

"I was taken to the ninth floor of the tower block where I was thrown onto the landing. Another gang member pulled a knife out and I was forced into more sex acts with five others. I was like a zombie.

"In the end, there were 19 there. They were all laughing and encouraging each other, calling me a slag and a 'headchick'. Some were punching me. I was slammed against the wall six times. There were so many grabbing at me, pulling my clothes off. I'd reached the point of giving up. I really thought I was going to die.

"Then I recognised a boy I'd known for years, I felt relieved. He was a friend. But when I asked him to help me, he looked at me hard and said, 'No, I'm with my boys now'. I will never forget that.

"Then I was forced into a sex act with him too-and then with others. If I refused they smashed my head against the wall."

After hours of abuse, Jane's ordeal only ended when an older gang member turned up-and realised what a serious crime was taking place. Appalled by what he saw, he told her to run while he blocked the doorway.

"He seemed to command some respect from them-and he gave evidence at my court case. I'm so grateful he saved me," she says.

Jane spent 10 hours at the police station where she was swabbed for DNA. She says: "When my mother arrived, it broke my heart because she couldn't cuddle me in case evidence was contaminated."

Then came the aftermath. "At first I was so ashamed about what had happened to me, all I wanted to do was lie on my bed crying for hours and cuddle my pink teddy, Pinkie. I wanted to be a little girl again."

Still the swaggering young rapists haunted her-they even proudly scratched their gang's name above the ninth-floor lift where she was last attacked. "For a year before the court case, my family were threatened," Jane says. "The boys who raped me smashed up a car they thought was my stepfather's.

Threatening

"They would pass by my home and send threatening messages through friends. We had to move to a safe house. We had to leave our life and friends behind and start over." It was the price Jane paid for justice. She attended the six-week trial and Det Con Jonathan Burks, who worked on the case, said: "I commend her bravery in giving evidence."

Nine gang members, including the leader and bike boy, both 16, were convicted at Snaresbrook Crown Court of rape, kidnap and false imprisonment. They will be sentenced next month.

Jane is already serving her sentence-one which will never end. "I've had suicidal thoughts," she admits. "I would dig a knife into my wrist-but I could never go through with it because it would seem like they had won. I started self-harming.

"That has gone but I still have nightmares. Now I see a counsellor and I feel I am making progress."

Jane has turned 15-but has to be home schooled. "I wish I could be like other teenagers," she says. "I can't even make friends because I can't leave the house.

"It's like I've stopped growing up. I depend on my mother for everything.

"But I'm determined not to let it beat me. Those boys ruined my past. Only I can allow them to ruin my future. One day, I will have a life again."