Two paedophiles who bought and sold a teenage boy on a Bradford car park have been jailed for a total of 15 years.

Leeds Crown Court heard how the vulnerable 14-year-old was "groomed" for sex then abducted and sold into a week-long "blur" of abuse at the hands of a gang of perverts.

Nathan Eyre, 38, from Horsforth, was jailed on Tuesday for eight years at Leeds Crown Court after a judge heard how he spent two years grooming the youngster before selling him to Raymond Hawthorne, the leader of a national paedophile ring.

The court was told the boy was "sold" on the car park of McDonald's, in Rooley Lane. He was driven there by Eyre then told to get into Hawthorne's car along with a teenage girl.

The boy estimated around £500 in a bundle of notes was handed to Eyre by Hawthorne.

Hawthorne, 40, of Manchester, was jailed for seven years earlier this week.

The case could not be reported until a related trial was completed yesterday at Leeds Crown Court.

The court heard how Eyre spent two years carefully grooming his victim and putting him to work as a male prostitute before cashing in on his "investment".

He sold the 14-year-old to Raymond Hawthorne, from Eccles, the national leader of a paedophile ring.

But the boy, who would drug himself to ease the pain of being abused by his "customers", was finally rescued after his mother reported him missing.

Eyre, 38, latched on to the boy while he was still living at home, plying him with drink and drugs, alienating him from his family and brainwashing him into believing that what he was going through was somehow normal.

Eyre was sentenced for living off the earnings of a male prostitute and for conspiring to sell the young victim to Hawthorne.

Yesterday, Justice Holland criticised the law as "quite absurd" for limiting the sentence he could apply to Eyre to a maximum seven years for living off the earnings of prostitutes.

He called for the director of the Crown Prosecution Service to look at the issue.

Hawthorne pleaded guilty to abduction, indecency with a child, conspiring to live off the earnings of a male prostitute and conspiring to commit indecent assaults.

Sentencing Eyre, Judge Justice Holland said: "The criminality is really quite breathtaking, it was complete exploitation. From the victim impact statement, it is clear the consequences are still continuing, the mental and psychological scars may be with him for the rest of his life."

Prosecuting, Neil Davey QC said the young victim "serviced so many clients in so many parts of the country and in so many different ways it became impossible for him to remember how many men he had serviced or in what circumstances".

"It all just blurred into one week-long episode of sexual abuse," he said.

Eyre, of St James Drive, Horsforth, first befriended the boy in 2002, and gradually created an atmosphere where it was considered normal for young boys to be having sex with much older men and that it was "okay" for these things to happen, the court heard.

Mr Davey told the court: "The process was

well thought out, long-drawn, meticulous, cynical and spectacularly effective."

Eyre told the boy to skip school on October 24, 2003, and to come to his flat in his school uniform, bringing with him a change of clothes, the court heard.

Eyre then drove the young victim to the car park of the McDonald's where the boy was told to get into Hawthorne's car, along with a teenage girl.

Hawthorne then took the young boy and girl to meet a man on the outskirts of London, with whom they both had sex "aggressively".

The boy then spent a week at Hawthorne's home, working as an under-age prostitute, drugging himself so he would not feel the pain he had to go through. He told the police in interview that it would numb the pain at the time but afterwards it would be "bad, really bad".

West Yorkshire Police Child and Public Protection Unit launched an investigation after the boy's mother reported him missing on October 25 last year.

In mitigation, Guy Kearle QC said Eyre, who is serving a five-year jail sentence for theft, had not involved himself sexually with any child, but conceded he had brought the young boy into prostitution.