Two men who groomed and raped girls in Rotherham, who were “vulnerable in the extreme”, have been jailed for 20 years and 18-and-a-half years.

Romulad Stefan Houphouet, who is now 37, and Absolom Sigiyo, now 41, were found guilty of a number of offences including rape earlier this week and jailed at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday.

Sheffield Crown Court was told during a five-week trial how two teenage girls were sexually assaulted several times a week over months in the South Yorkshire town more than a decade ago by a gang of men who referred to them as “fresh meat”.

Judge Sarah Wright told Ivorian national Houphouet, of Burngreave in Sheffield, and Sigiyo, a Zimbabwean national, of Catcliffe in Rotherham, they inflicted “severe psychological harm” to the girls who are suffering to this day.

Houphouet was jailed for 20 years and Sigiyo for 18 years and six months.

Judge Wright told the complainants, who watched the sentencing hearing on a video link, they had shown “bravery beyond measure” by reporting the abuse and telling the jury what happened to them when they were vulnerable girls living in a children’s home.

She said they were “vulnerable in the extreme”