All language subtitles for Ch4.Groomed.A.National.Scandal.1080p.HDTV.x265.AAC.MVGroup.org

Thank you, Jade, so much
for coming today. It's OK.

Do you think about how many men
might have actually abused you?

It's in the hundreds,
but I just try not to...

TEARFULLY: ..try not to go there.

This is the story of five women...

One day it was like 11 men
that all done something to me.

I told the police on numerous
occasions. Nothing ever got done.

..a story I found out about
nearly 30 years ago.

There they are, that's them.
Three cars.

The men used to pick us up
from school

and the school teachers and the
headteacher used to watch them.

They kept me in a flat
for two days...

..where they took turns on me.

And were you there by yourself?

Yeah.

A story set against
a political fire storm...

MAN ON LOUD-HAILER: Young girls are
being systematically raped

by Muslim paedophile perverts.

Most of these victims are
absolute liars,

and they still get away with it.

When the police do knock
on their door,

they're like,
"My husband would never do that."

..which exploded again in
January this year.

Lies and misinformation.

ROARING: Yes!

I've been a film-maker for 30
years,

and I was already going back
through my own archives.

Men. Asian men,
blaming the Asian men.

Can I just ask you this?
What is it? Why Asians? No.

Well, what about the white guys

that are raping their own daughters
and stuff?

And I've spent the last year
re-piecing together this history.

But also finding out
what is still happening now.

I don't know what to say, like,

to people that say
it's not happening.

Everything that's happened to me,
that's your evidence,

and it's still happening.

They're not gonna stop.

It's a story told by
the people who really matter,

the people who feel
they've been silenced -

the survivors.

We are not the problem.

Them men are the problem.

This is a film I hoped
I'd never have to make.

Its subject has haunted me
most of my working life,

and it's still going on now.

When I was 28,

I first found out about
British schoolgirls

being groomed into
sexual exploitation.

At that point,
I was a young researcher.

I'd never directed a film.

Oh, gosh, this is it.

Back in 1996, I met the director of
a Barnardo's project in Bradford

called Streets And Lanes.

That meeting changed
the course of my life.

Children are victims,
not prostitutes, say Barnardo's.

Barnardo's told me about
a pattern of abuse

that they'd been documenting for
a full year.

At that time, the victims were
called child prostitutes.

And what I knew from this research,

but was never released to the press,

was that in Bradford in 1996,

the deeply unpalatable fact
was that the perpetrators

were overwhelmingly
British Pakistani men.

And, for the last three decades,

however troubling this was,

I knew I couldn't shy away
from that truth.

Right.

Chantelle, scene one, take one.
Marking.

CLAPPER BOARD CLICKS

Are you OK, Chantelle?
Yeah.

Yeah?
I'm fine.

So, look, thank you so much
for coming today,

and thank you for wanting
to be involved with this film.

Today I'm meeting Chantelle.

She feels ready to identify herself.

She's now in her 30s,

but her story starts
in the early 2000s.

When I was growing up, my mum was
in and out of prison a lot.

So, Social Services got involved,

cos my dad was unable
to look after all of us on his own.

Chantelle and her four brothers and
sisters were all placed in care.

I actually preferred being in care.

I was going to school,
I was being fed,

I was having a bath,
I was making friends.

It was quite nice at first.

And how old were you at that
point, Chantelle,

when you first went into care?

I was eight years old.

You moved around quite a lot,
didn't you, in those early years?

Yeah. In total, from being
around nine, up until I was 17,

I think I had 40-odd different
placements, residential and fosters.

When she was 11,
Chantelle was moved

to emergency accommodation
in Manchester.

Before long, men started turning up
outside the children's home.

So, my children's home
was on the right.

A bunch of men used to just sit
on the wall outside the home.

And I ended up getting into
what I thought was a relationship.

There was like no sexual intercourse
or anything at first,

it was all food, beer, cigarettes.

And then he introduced cannabis.

They used to put pills
into my drinks

and try and give me cocaine
and stuff like that.

It progressed quite quickly
to a sexual relationship.

It was only with the one guy
for about a week or two.

And then a car used to come,
and there'd be a driver,

and there'd be two men in the back -

one that I genuinely thought
was my boyfriend at first.

He used to bring his friends
in the car,

and I used to have to, like,
do oral sex on them and...

That was when you were still 11,
you were doing all of that?

Yeah. OK. And when you said you
thought this guy was your boyfriend,

can you remember how old he was?

He was at least 20.

Can you just tell me
why you want to remain anonymous?

Cos I'm not ready
to come public yet,

and to, obviously,
to protect my child.

Yeah, OK.

I'm interviewing Erin.

Her hands and her voice are real.

But the face you are seeing
is an actor's.

Why do you think
you want to do this today?

To tell what the real truth were,
because I got silenced as a child.

How...how did you get silenced
as a child?

The police and the Social Services
made me feel like it was my fault.

And, inside, I were screaming.

But nobody were listening.

Erin's story begins
in the early 2000s.

Growing up, we were
like a big family.

They were at always, like,
my grandma's and stuff,

and all the cousins
were like together,

but I always just felt like
I didn't fit in anywhere.

I loved my family.

But I found it really difficult.

It started at the age of 12.

We just went into town.

And there were these
young Asian boys

that were kind of
the same age as us.

And we were just like
hanging about the bus station.

That happened for a couple of weeks.

And then the boys
introduced their uncles.

First person that raped me,
I was aged 13.

I just wanted to be accepted.

And that's why, I think,
a lot of the time,

I let the men...do stuff to me.

You know, because I was scared
to say no.

The pattern of how to groom a child

that Barnardo's documented
in 1996 was new.

But its five stages have become
frighteningly familiar now.

These are my original notes
that I've kept for 30 years.

Stage one - a young girl, normally
aged 13,

is courted by an older man
aged 18 to 25.

The girl thinks she falls in love
and perceives him as her boyfriend.

Stage two - the guys starts
to demand dependency from the girl.

He'll be jealous and start to
isolate from friends and family.

Stage three - by this point,
the guy has got control.

"You'll do this
for me if you love me."

The fear of violence enters.

Stage four - drugs enter.

The final stage is prostitution,

but it would never be expressed
in that language.

The girl is asked to sleep
with his mates.

She's doing him a favour.

They just kept coming and coming.

I think I was going missing every
day from that children's home.

I remember one day, like,
I was high on drugs,

off all these drugs they'd give me,

and I was trying to run away.

And they put me in the car

and they ended up taking us
to a hotel in town.

And we was there
for like four days,

and men was just coming
and going.

And, in the end, they was like,
"Here's a load of money."

Took us to the Arndale Centre
and bought me a gold ring,

a mobile phone.

And then dropped us back off at
the children's home.

There was another incident where
I was anally raped by these men,

and, like, passed about.

One day, there was like 11 men
that all done something to me.

And they wouldn't let us go.

I told the police
on numerous occasions,

and there was never, ever
any follow-ups.

All they done was took
the mobile phone off me,

and the ring that they bought me.

They'd pick us up from school,

and the school teachers and the
headteacher used to watch them.

They'd, like,
threaten my family and stuff.

What would they threaten to do
to your family?

Erm, to rape my mum and my sister,
and to petrol-bomb the house.

My mum,
she were upset and stuff,

and reported stuff to the police,

but the police weren't bothered.

They said, "Well, you know,
it's her lifestyle choices."

These people that were meant
to protect you,

and they're calling you
a prostitute.

Erin was 14 at this point.

Police were saying, apparently,
I was a prostitute,

and I was putting myself at risk.

But if they're coming to my home
and approaching me,

or I'm not getting took back
for days,

that's not me prostituting myself,
do you know?

That was me being took advantage of.

I was just crying out for help,
to be honest.

Nothing ever got done.

You might think that
because Chantelle

and Erin's cases happened
20 years ago,

it's a scandal,
but it couldn't possibly happen now.

But the reason I decided to go back
to investigate

was that my police sources from
the early 2000s were telling me

that this exact pattern
was still happening today.

Why don't you wanna be
identified today?

I'm living in the middle
of where I was being groomed.

Like, it's too much of a risk

for me to be putting my face on
to be noticed.

Sure.

Scarlett is now 20 and,
as recently as two years ago,

was caught up in
a cycle of exploitation

that started when she was 14.

She feels it's too dangerous
to identify,

so we're replacing her face
with an actor's,

but her voice and her hands
are real.

14th of September 2022,
this was a taxi driver,

he used to pick me up
and take me to Rochdale.

He'd be sent to go and pick you up?

Yeah. I didn't use to pay.

THUNDER RUMBLES

In 2022,

Scarlett was trafficked
for sex around the country.

Wolverhampton, Bradford,

Birmingham, Dudley.

It's only looking back at my
Snapchat memories

to see where I was that I knew
I was in these places.

Like, I couldn't even remember
being there.

Yeah.

How many girls
do you think you know

that are still
right in the middle of it?

Erm, the people that
I personally know in Tameside,

probably like three,

but then, if you're going up
and down the country,

like, I've met so many girls.

Still see them on a daily basis,

some of these people
walking around.

Do they see you?

Erm, no, cos they don't
recognise what I look like any more.

But I know them, like.

When I see them,
I know exactly who they are.

You don't know what to say, like,

to people that say
it's not happening.

Everything that's happened to me,
that's your evidence,

and it's still happening.
They're not gonna stop,

Like, it's actually organised crime.

I've made lots of films in my career
about child sexual abuse.

And the statistics show that
the vast majority of abuse

is carried out in the home or in an
institution, by someone you know.

And the vast majority of offenders
in the UK are white.

But, as I started to investigate

this particular pattern
of child sexual abuse,

I needed to understand
the specific nature

of the cases that involve
British Pakistani perpetrators.

When I looked back through
my archive,

I found this footage
of two men in Sheffield

who told us why such young girls
were being targeted.

Why 13-year-old girls?
Why not older girls?

It's cos the younger girls,
it's easy to take advantage.

Cos when they're 18, 19,
they don't really fall

for little things like that.

They listen cos they're vulnerable.
They can never get out.

It's important for me to go back
to find out who knew what, when.

I decided to track down some of
the other women

who've been involved in exposing
child sexual exploitation.

One of them is Jayne Senior
in Rotherham.

In 1999, I applied for a job

to manage
the Risky Business project.

And it was initially set up
to work with girls

and children involved
in prostitution.

It wasn't very long before
we began to recognise

that you cannot put the word 'child'
and 'prostitute'

in the same sentence.

Because, actually, we were talking
about children

that were being exploited,
trafficked, tortured, raped.

In 2000, some of Jayne's cases
were examined for a research project

funded by the Home Office, on child
sexual exploitation in Rotherham.

This report was never published,

but we've been given
an original copy.

Astonishingly, it says that
268 young women

were known to Jayne's team,
and a further 63 were at risk.

That's 331 young women
at risk in 2002.

The report identified that were
a lot of gaps and a lot of faults.

And it was sent off
to senior managers in the council,

and it was sent off to
the Home Office.

And it just then became toxic.

Why? Because they didn't
want to hear what we had found,

even though it was truthful

and it was actually helping
to protect these children.

Was there a reluctance in Rotherham
to face it head-on

because the perpetrators
were overwhelming British Pakistani?

I think there was.

I was told on more than one occasion

I needed to stop rocking
the multicultural boat.

It were just kind of swept away
and swept under the carpet.

It's so shocking to think that
the Home Office

and Rotherham Council knew in 2002
how children were being failed

and known perpetrators were left
to carry on abusing,

and chose to do nothing
other than bury that report.

Only a few miles away,
in West Yorkshire,

Erin's grooming had reached the
stage where she was being controlled

by one man she thought
was her boyfriend.

He used to pick me up from home,

and one of the times,
him and his cousin raped me

at the same time,
in Leeds.

Obviously, I told him no,

but they had vaginal and anal sex
at the same time.

It really hurt.

And that must have been absolutely
terrifying for you.

It were.

SHE SNIFFS

I kept on screaming,

like, "Get off me" and stuff.

Yeah, I just wanted it to stop.

But he didn't...he didn't listen.

It...it just felt pain going
through like my whole body.

And then, when they was done
with me,

I were crying and screaming
and saying,

"Why would you do that?"

Him and his cousin drove me back
to my house, and he, erm,

told me that if I ever spoke
about it, then he'd kill me,

and he threw me into
my mum and dad's garden.

TEARFULLY: I just felt disgusting.

After Erin's horrific assault
at the hands of two men,

her mum took her
to the police station.

My mum gave them my knickers
and, like, my phone and stuff.

She were kicking off
with them, saying,

"She's got bite marks
from head to toe,"

saying that I had semen
in my knickers.

But they didn't care.

They were just like, "What do you
want us to do about it?"

Amy Clowrey is a specialist
child abuse lawyer,

and she represents Erin.

I can't understand why a vulnerable
child has been violently raped

by a number of people,

semen has been provided
to the police,

and they've not been able
to do anything with that,

and just essentially
let that person get away with it.

And I think
what is really worrying from that,

you can understand why these girls
thought that those men

weren't doing anything wrong,

because if they were doing
something wrong,

surely the police would have done
something about it?

At the same time, in Manchester,
in 2003,

things were about to change.

There was a girl who lived local
called Victoria.

And when I used to go round
to this flat,

sometimes she'd be, like,
hanging around, or with this man.

And I remember her because she used
to have all her hair scraped back

and a plait and big earrings.

She always had a smile on her face,
she was always happy.

And she looked like
she was in love with this man.

He was a lot older than Victoria.

So, you were 11 at that point.
How old was Victoria, do you think?

I think she was 15, nearly 16.

REPORTER: Victoria Agoglia lived a
short and horrific life -

beaten, raped
and injected with heroin.

Chantelle's friend,
Victoria Agoglia,

died in September 2003,
when she was just 15...

..five days after being
forcibly injected with heroin

by an older man.

REPORTER: ...hospital that
Vicky died on Monday

from a suspected drugs overdose.

Her abuser was eventually jailed
for two-and-half years,

but Victoria's death spurred the
police in Manchester into action.

I was asked to join a job that
became known as Operation Augusta.

It was my first introduction

to what has been now recognised
as grooming gangs.

Maggie scene one, take one. Marking.

CLAPPER BOARD CLICKS

Maggie Oliver is another woman
who's traversed

the same period of history as me.

She was a Detective Constable
on this new team.

Within the space of, really,
weeks, we had dozens of men,

virtually all Pakistani men.

They were sending younger boys
to pick up children

from the children's homes,
a pattern that's well known now.

The children were all in care

from the age of 11 up until 16,
really.

And they were just
like cannon fodder.

Seeing them parked there just makes
you feel sick,

knowing the amount of times
young girls are being brought here.

And that, even the police came,

they would still
just be left there.

At the same time in Bradford,
in 2003,

I was making a film called
Edge Of The City.

In most cases where we have a crime,

we have a victim that comes forward
and says, "I'm a victim of crime."

This is unusual because we don't
have girls actually saying...

..saying that, in most cases.

It's not about colour,
it's not about religion.

It's about young girls
getting abused by young men.

What you uncovered in Yorkshire

was exactly what was happening
in Manchester in 2004.

Riots across the Pennines happened
in the summer of 2001.

In Bradford,
the city was still on edge,

and the ethnicity of the grooming
gangs was the touch paper.

Local elections in
Bradford were looming,

with ten BNP candidates standing.

And Edge Of The City
was about to air.

The Chief Constable of West
Yorkshire wrote to Channel 4,

saying, "The film will increase
community tensions,

"with a consequent risk it will
provoke public disorder."

The film was postponed

and transmitted a few months later,
unchanged.

But gang grooming had become a
deeply polarising political issue.

The only time I can look back
and I was really, really happy

and I felt like I fitted in
was when I lived in Wales.

I lived with a foster family
called Julie and Tony.

Julie, I still class her as my mum,
still to this day.

Still only 11, Chantelle managed
to escape her abusers.

She was moved out of Manchester
to Wales.

I lived a lovely, friendly,
happy life.

We used to always go to the beach.
It was dead nice.

Chantelle had been in this
foster placement

for two years when things started
to break down.

They didn't tell Julie that before
I went there, I was abused.

So, she wasn't aware, so it was...

The placement broke down.

So, then you came back
to Manchester? Yeah.

And then it pretty quickly resumed,
did it?

Yeah.

We had identified
97 child rapists.

We had identified
about three dozen children

who were being raped
pretty much every day.

So, Chantelle was one of
the children whose name

was on our Augusta list.
But I never met her.

No-one had told Chantelle

that she'd been identified
by Operation Augusta

as a child at risk.

She's the first child from
the Augusta investigation

to waive their anonymity.

I remember going mad
at my social worker,

saying I wanted to move,

and that I didn't want them
to come to the home any more.

And nothing got done about it -

nothing got stopped,
they didn't move me.

Your perpetrators were largely
Pakistani men, weren't they?

Yeah. Did you ever feel that there
was a reluctance

to deal with it
because of that issue?

I've never really
fully understood why.

Is it because they don't wanna be
classed as racist,

or is it because we have genuinely
just got no-one that cares?

In May 2004,

Maggie and her colleagues presented
their findings to senior officers.

The Augusta Report was
never published

by Greater Manchester Police,

but we've tracked down
an original copy.

It said that the perpetrators
were almost exclusively Asian males.

And that the offences ranged from
assault and harassment

to rape and manslaughter.

We were told it had been accepted
that it was a major incident.

We would be given
a full major incident team

to properly resource,
investigate and prosecute.

And we were all...

..happy as Larry, really,

knowing that these men
were not gonna be allowed

to destroy more generations
of children.

All good? Yeah.

I've come to meet Steph,

who was also one of
the children in Operation Augusta.

She doesn't want us to identify her,

so her face is an actor's,

and her voice
and her hands are real.

Do you wanna just tell me
a little bit about your early life?

I did a lot of homes,
I did a lot of foster placements.

I don't think I really stayed
in one particular place

for more than six month a year.

I moved into a children's home.

I started going out
with some of the girls,

who introduced me to these men.

Someone picked me up
from the children's home,

took me to this flat.

I remember looking
at how shiny his shoes were,

and I actually asked him
what was his job.

Cos there was two of them,
dressed identical.

Erm, they said that they were
security guards.

They kept me in a flat for two days.

The big one took me into
the bedroom,

telling me to relax.

And then the next one would come in
and they just took turns.

And were you there by yourself?

Yeah.

I do remember speaking to
one of the women

who worked in the children's home,
and I told her.

And that's when she reported it.

The police come and seen me.
Erm...

And then...nothing after that.

At the same time, in Keighley,
I was filming with two mums

whose daughters were being
exploited in exactly the same way.

They didn't want to be identified,

so their voices are actors.

The door were locked,

her mobile phone were taken off her
and smashed on the floor.

She was given more drink
and she was drugged.

She were led upstairs,

and four men sexually abused
my daughter for over two hours.

Because Steph had turned 18,

she was the only victim Maggie was
given permission to go and talk to.

Today, Steph herself, and Maggie,
are retracing a journey

they first took 20 years ago,

which was to prove crucial
for both of them.

I asked her whether she would be
able to show me some of the premises

and she pointed out a couple of
takeaway places

that she said the rooms upstairs
were used

to rape and abuse children.

As we were driving past a park,
out of nowhere,

Steph said, "Oh, my God."

I remember seeing the car
what I'd been picked up in,

and I said to you,
"That's the car." Yeah.

Cos he picked us up
a few times in it

from the children's home.

And you weren't in any doubt,
were you? No.

Not that long after, the male come
out who drives that car.

And I remember saying to you,
"That was him."

On that journey, when Steph was 18,

she'd spotted one of the men

who'd imprisoned and raped her
in a flat for two days.

Next thing I remember,

you're sliding down in your chair

to hide yourself from being seen
from outside the car.

Maggie went back to
the police station

and looked up the car registration

on the police national computer
to find out who it belonged to.

We got a call back,

and it was the Internal
Investigations Department,

and they asked me
why had I PNC-ed that vehicle.

And I explained that it had been
pointed out

as the car belonging to
a child rapist.

And I was told that our team
mustn't do anything else

in relation
to that vehicle or that man

because he was a serving
police officer

and he was already under
investigation for other offences.

Soon after this incident,

Maggie took compassionate leave
because her husband was ill.

I came back to work, expecting
to go back onto Operation Augusta,

but the whole job had been buried,

as though it had never been in
existence at all.

Everything had gone.

Operation Augusta was shut down
by senior officers

in Greater Manchester
in the summer of 2005.

The reason given was
lack of resources.

57 victims were left
to be exploited,

and 97 perpetrators were left on
the streets of Manchester

to continue to abuse children.

For years, I just felt nothing.

I didn't think it was bad,
what happened to me.

I was just so confused and angry -

this little teenager that didn't
know what was going on in her head,

and I'd just explode.

Yeah. And, like, I feel like it was
a big cry for help.

Marlon is Scarlett's dad.

You've got a little girl.

Why don't you just describe her
for me when she was growing up?

So, Scarlett, from a very young age,
was obsessed with horses.

That's all she spoke about.

I think probably one of
the first words were "pony".

Go on, like, fancy dress rides,
competitions and stuff.

My life just revolved around
this horse.

Like, I just loved him to bits.
Like, he was like my best friend.

How would I describe her?

A character.

Very funny.
A big personality.

I wouldn't say I was naughty
or anything,

I'd just say I was
a bit of a class clown.

Scarlett went to a private school
and had a stable upbringing.

She went off the rails
after she got attacked

by a group of local kids
when she was 13.

She was excluded from school

and befriended by an older girl

who took her to parties,
where she met the groomers.

So, she'd go missing for
a week or two weeks.

And then she'd return home,
she'd be dirty,

she'd be extremely skinny

because she's not been eating,
taking drugs.

My dad would be following
me in cars.

I used to hate him.
He was like a police officer.

He'd be taking, like,
pictures of car reges,

driving round, following me.

And we'd be doing drugs with men,
just off our faces,

and we didn't care
that my dad was outside.

She'd probably stay with me
for about 24 hours,

48 hours, eat, shower,

clean clothes, and then
she'd disappear again.

At crisis point, Marlon made
a heart-breaking decision.

Scarlett going into care
is the hardest thing I have ever,

ever done in my life.

That is not an easy thing to do.

I think it was like four men
turned up,

and they literally dragged me out,

didn't tell me where I was going.

I was put in the back of this car
at stupid o'clock in the morning

and taken to Wales.

Scarlett was 15 at the time,
just five years ago.

I think they were just seen as
problem children, problem families.

And I think because it wasn't
happening inside the family home,

there was a different attitude
towards these young girls.

I think they were seen as...
Well, we've seen.

We've seen the word prostitute used.

Lots of other derogatory terms used
to describe these vulnerable girls

that were being sexually abused,

all of it placing the blame
on an individual or her family,

none of it looking at
the perpetrators

and what we can do
to get them off the streets.

The role models that these
young lads are looking up to

are flash cars, money, some kind of
criminal, you know, style.

And, yeah, easy access
to women and sex.

If you go for girls
under the age of 16,

you're fucked in your head,
aren't you?

And you've got problems.
End of. You deserve to die.

By 2008, it was becoming clear
that this problem was not confined

just to the north of England.

Thank you, Jade, so much
for coming today. That's OK.

Thank you for making the journey
and leaving your kids.

Yes.

Jade is in her 30s.

She feels able to identify herself.

So do you want to just tell me
about your early life?

Life was good.

It was as good
as it could have been.

My mum was absolutely amazing.

It was my dad, really.

He was an alcoholic
and used to beat my mum up.

That was the main downfall.

When Jade was 14,

she wasn't getting on
with her mum's new boyfriend,

and she eventually moved in
with her dad.

Turns out, my dad,
he was a raging heroin addict.

He used to take me to go
and pick up drugs with him.

That's where it all started,
with my dad's drug dealers.

They'd pretend to look after me

because I was the young girl who
needed someone to look after her.

When me and my dad would argue,

I would run away...

..and my dad's friends would be
the first ones I'd go to.

They would get me, erm,

just get me drunk
and just make me feel special.

In 2008, when she was still 14,

Jade was placed into care by
Buckinghamshire Children's Services.

We would go out for drinks.

Some of my friends would come out,
like, it would just all be...

..parties.

The more times you go there,
the more drunk they'll get you,

and then the more things
would happen.

It would get to
a point where I'd be like,

"Ah, can we go home now?"

And it would be like,
"Right, if you sleep here with him

"and then your friend
sleeps with that person,

"you can go home."

You're in the middle of nowhere,
don't have a clue where you are,

and don't know
how you're going to get home.

You're literally with
all of these big men.

What do you do?
Yeah.

It just... It's a scary situation.

Do you think about how many men
might have actually abused you?

It's in the hundreds,
but I just try not to...

TEARFULLY: I try not to go there.

Jade was 14 when she was caught up
in sexual exploitation

in High Wycombe.

She still has proof
of how the grooming worked.

"Hey, how's it's going?

"Got a party down the road,
Saturday night.

"Let me know if you want to
bring some friends.

"Would love you to join us
for fun."

"Want to mingle tonight?'

I said, "Shut up."

"What about tomorrow?
I'm going to get some coke and drink

"and I'll pick you up for a bit."

VOICE ECHOING: "Hi, Jade,
how are you?"

"If I send a taxi..."
"What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Can I come and get you?"
"An hour is all it needs."

He was like, "Why don't you come
and suck my cock?"

I was 14 years old.

I've gone home with black eyes.

I've run up the road naked
to try and get out of a hotel.

And they've just drove up the road
and got me again.

So, then, when things
like that happen,

the next time, you just do it.

Because you're frightened?
Yeah.

I've told people that,
"I am going to report you."

And it'd be like
"Well, go on, then,

"because I will tell them
that you drank too much.

"I will tell them that you are
the one that tried it on with me."

Jade was being controlled by one man
she was particularly close to.

He was the one I'd trust.

He introduced me to everyone -
his cousins, his uncles.

There'd be times where I'd get
a phone call. It'd be like,

"Ah, he's been arrested for rape."

"No, he hasn't.
No, he's not like that.

"That's not him."

He's taken me to his taxi base,
where seven men took it in turns

with me in the toilet
when I was that drunk

that I couldn't even hold myself up,
throwing up in the toilet.

He's really brutal. He's just...

Yeah, I don't know if I'm ready
to talk about it

with him at the minute,
if I'm honest.

TEARFULLY: When you think
you care for someone

and they put you through
all of that, it's mental.

In 2009, as Jade and Erin
were still being groomed,

I wanted to make another film which
tackled the issue of race head-on.

Although a third of men associated
with gang grooming were white,

Asian men were massively
overrepresented in the figures.

In the film,
I wanted to speak directly

to members of
the British Pakistani community.

We do have a problem,
and obviously it is more, like,

Asian boys who are grooming
these girls.

Parents sometimes don't have
the confidence to talk

to their children about sex
and about exploitation

and the age of consent
and all the rules.

I've got two children.
I would talk about it.

The new generation of parenting,
we'll talk about it.

It's our parents
that it was a taboo for.

I wouldn't like it to happen
to my 12-year-old daughter,

that's for sure.

It would make me very angry and
I would want that person locked up.

We're disgusted by it.
This is not what we are.

Our religion and our values
as British and Muslim people

does condemn this altogether.

I was also following the work
of police officers in Telford

who were mounting
a complex investigation

into men who were exploiting
young girls in the town.

The facilitators were actually
young Pakistani men.

And the difficulty is,
how do you deal with that

without being accused
of being racist?

My view is this -
I've got a bunch of criminals.

I don't care what background
they come from,

I don't care anything else
about them,

other than they're gang raping
young girls.

In 2009, police and social workers
in High Wycombe

were becoming increasingly concerned
about Jade.

She was going missing from her
children's home on a regular basis.

Thames Valley Police decided to put
a police protection order on Jade.

This means that,
if she went missing again,

the police had to respond
immediately.

But she continued to be
passed around the groups.

Me and a girl went out one night.

We went out with one group,

and then that group dropped us off
to another group.

We went and had a few drinks
in their house.

I woke up to the police around me.

I got taken away,
got taken to a police station.

So I thought I was sitting there
waiting to get taken back

to my care home,
cos I was reported missing.

The police officers come up
and arrested me

for inciting sexual activity,
or something, on a minor.

Erm... Yeah, I didn't even know
what them words meant.

So I was really... I was
just confused about everything,

about how they've even
put that on me.

And the charge was that you'd taken
somebody from your care home

who was younger than you...
Yeah.

..to go and have sex with these men?
Yeah.

Less than a month after being
placed under police protection

because she was such
a vulnerable young person,

Jade had herself been arrested
under grooming charges.

She'd gone from being a victim
to a criminal in a matter of weeks.

I got sentenced to
a two-year detention training order,

but I actually done 14 months,

and then five years
on the sex offenders register.

They said that I'm at risk
with people under the age of 18,

that I can't have no contact
with anyone under the age of 18,

even though I was
under the age of 18 myself.

Moved to the adult side
on my 18th birthday.

When people found out my offence,

obviously I got classed as a nonce
in there.

Yeah, it was pretty brutal.

Jade was serving her sentence

because she took a friend along
to one of the so-called parties

organised by the groomers.

Her own perpetrators
remained at large.

She was convicted six months after
the first major gang grooming trial

hit the headlines in Derby.

Nine men were found guilty
of serious offences.

These included rape,
false imprisonment,

sexual assault,
and sexual activity with a child.

I was filming in Derby on the day
of the convictions in 2010

when the English Defence League
jumped on the case.

We are standing
outside this court today

in protest of these members
of the Islamic community.

SHOUTING

They're sexual predators,
exactly what the judge has said.

They are sexual predators, and this
was all about sexual gratification

against vulnerable young girls.

The rhetoric from those at the top
seemed to change

to become one of zero tolerance.

The law should be blind to colour
and ethnicity and religion.

Things have to change.

Our most important task
is to make sure the police

and prosecutors approach this
with the right mindset.

But in Rotherham, after yet another
report about the perpetrators

was dismissed by council leaders,
Jayne had devastating news.

One of the senior managers
in Rotherham Borough Council

came to see me and told me,
as from that day,

Risky Business were no more,
and they closed it down.

And then I remember
I received a call

asking if I'd be willing
to speak to a reporter.

And I just made the decision -
absolutely, yes.

She decided to blow the whistle
in 2012

to newspaper reporter
Andrew Norfolk,

who wrote a series of articles
in The Times...

We laid bare a picture
of more than a decade in that town

where men had been
targeting, grooming,

pimping, trafficking young girls.

..and I was starting to think that
the tide was actually turning

as more and more cases
came to court.

Two pairs of brothers
were among five men jailed for life

for their part in a paedophile
sex grooming ring...

..guilty of a range of offences,

from rape to conspiracy
and trafficking...

..jailed for crimes
against more than a dozen

vulnerable teenage girls...

..today sentenced to a minimum
of 95 years in prison.

And the case I'd been following
for three years in Telford

came to a head in 2013.

You've text that person,

"Were you going to suck
my sweet chocolate cock?"

What's that about?
No comment.

What did you do with her, then?

What did you do with her?

So you had sex with her?

The Chalice investigation resulted

in eight men being sentenced
in total to 59.5 years.

One year later, in 2014,
Rotherham exploded.

My little town became
international news.

Breaking news - the release
of that shocking report

into allegations of child sex abuse
in Rotherham.

At least 1,400 individual children
in Rotherham were victims

of sexual exploitation
over the 16 years.

Sexually exploited, trafficked
to other towns and cities,

abducted, beaten, intimidated.

The 2014 Jay Report into
sexual exploitation in Rotherham

was a huge watershed moment.

I had no idea of scale and scope
of this type of organised crime.

We've recognised we've failed.
We've let our young people down.

As Chief Executive
as the council today,

I'm deeply sorry for those events.

The scandal in Rotherham
prompted police forces

around the country to re-examine
historic cases...

..but it took another five years
for Greater Manchester Police

to reopen their old files
on Operation Augusta,

the inquiry that had left
97 perpetrators

on the streets of Manchester
in 2005.

I was approached by
Greater Manchester Police,

and they said to me that
they wanted to make things right

from where things went wrong,
from Operation Augusta.

She said, "Yeah, you was identified
as a child."

She said, "Will you come
and speak to us about it?"

I felt really happy.

I felt like I was going to
get justice.

A review into Operation Augusta
had been ordered

15 years after it closed down.

The results were damning.

I want to apologise to all of
those vulnerable children

who were let down in 2004,

when Greater Manchester Police
did not thoroughly investigate.

I'm committed to doing
all that we can to ensure

that they receive the justice today
that they were denied 15 years ago.

Steph was also contacted
by Greater Manchester Police.

They knocked on my door.
I was quite shocked.

She believed that one of the men
who raped her was a police officer,

but she wanted confirmation.

I actually asked,
"Did he work for GMP?"

They both looked at each other

and said, "Yeah...

"..but he no longer works for GMP."

I said, "But if I've picked him out,
why has he never been investigated?"

I picked two men out
on an ID parade.

One of them was the main abuser.

Soon as I seen him, I knew,

and I just remember my whole body
just sank. I just felt sick.

I felt like I was going to
get justice

and, like, I'd done
what I had to do.

While I've been making this film,

we've spoken to many organisations
working with vulnerable young people

in towns and cities
up and down the country right now.

A care home manager in Blackpool
told us that street grooming

is the worst she's ever seen.

Jayne and Maggie
are both still working

with children at risk
of gang grooming every day.

And then there's Scarlett.

In 2021, after a year in care,

Scarlett was sent back
to Greater Manchester

to live with her dad. She was 16.

I really thought things had changed.

I was very wrong.

Because I'd been missing
for so long,

like, everyone wondered
where I'd gone.

When I was back on the scene, like,

I feel like people were
talking like, "Scarlett's back,

"Scarlett's back." And that's
when people started messaging.

Scarlett began being groomed again
by the same groups.

This was as recently as 2022.

I was just straight back into
the same stuff,

if not worse than I was
when I was 14.

And that's kind of where
it all started again.

Within months,
Marlon was struggling,

and asked Tameside Social Services
to provide some respite care

for Scarlett.

Just behind us now
was Scarlett's house.

This was terrible.

When she did stay there, she would
spend all night smoking cannabis

in the room or being picked up
by taxi drivers.

A lot of the staff
couldn't speak English,

their English was really poor,
so they'd just leave her on her own.

I think they was
absolutely clueless.

The staff just stayed in their room
all day.

Like, it was a young girl
not much older than me.

They didn't care what's going on.

This place, we might as well
have all been there alone.

But before long, Scarlett started
to be exploited by the groomers

in a different way.

She has a video of herself
cutting up crack cocaine

in the bedroom of this care home,

ready to be sold
by one of her groomers.

I'd been given this bag
the night before and told,

"It needs to be cut up
and ready to sell out to people

"the next morning."

I didn't know what I was doing,
so, like, when I was cutting it up,

it was just flying everywhere.

She was doing about 200
of these bags a night.

She was also going delivering it.

She was cutting up crack cocaine
in a care home

that was used for respite,

that Tameside Children's Services
had instructed and paid for.

Amy Clowrey is also
Scarlett's lawyer.

It's disappointing that this was
within the last five years,

and we should know enough now

to know that Scarlett
was being exploited,

and yet no action was being taken
against the men.

Scarlett shouldn't
have been groomed.

She wasn't protected
by Social Services.

She wasn't protected
by Greater Manchester Police.

And in some ways, I get more
distressed about that, because of...

These are the people
who you should be relying on

when you can't keep your child safe.

While Scarlett was in the depths
of being exploited

for sex and drug running,

West Yorkshire Police were
reinvestigating Erin's case.

Were you only abused by Asian men?

No. No.
There's abusers in every ethnicity.

Erin worked with
West Yorkshire Police

for a number of years
to get her cases to court.

I had to go through all that trauma
of reliving.

How many defence barristers
did you have asking you questions?

There were ten barristers.

Some of them,
it's like they call you a liar.

You feel like you're on trial.

You feel like
you're the perpetrator.

There's no sympathy or anything.

You feel like you're getting
attacked constantly.

It is very traumatic.

But I went to court

and I stood my ground
and told the truth.

Erin was involved in three trials,

and although it's taken many years,
her courage means that, so far,

seven men who violently abused her
have been convicted.

How did you feel
when the verdict came back?

It were just, like,
emotions all over.

A total shock.

Like, my body was there,
but my mind were elsewhere.

Justice has been served,
but why has it took so long?

People say, "All right, then,"

you know, "Get on
with your life now."

Like, are you joking?

This has been 22 years of my life,

22 years because of these men.

But gaining convictions is far from
the end of the story for victims.

CHANTING: No more lies,
no more shame!

No more lies, no more shame!

This is a protest by a group
who believe

that their relatives and friends
have been wrongly convicted

in gang grooming trials

due to racism in
the criminal justice system.

Racism in trial
is not a thing of the past,

it is a present,
ongoing crisis that denies...

I've been following the group online
for months.

Fair trials are our aim!
No more lies, no more shame!

My team infiltrated the private
WhatsApp group run by them.

What they're saying about
the victims was truly shocking.

They've also been holding
regular live streams on TikTok

for the last year.

While I was listening,
I realised that Irfan Khan,

a groomer from Batley
in West Yorkshire

who's serving 12 years for
three rapes and one threat to kill,

was actually calling in
to the TikTok live from prison,

which is against prison rules
and can result in a sanction.

He was one of 28 men convicted

as part of a West Yorkshire Police
operation

that led to prison sentences
of almost 400 years.

And in another call,
Irfan Khan's sister directly names

three victims who went through
grooming trials as witnesses

and have been granted
lifelong anonymity.

Have they broken the law?
Yeah, they've broken the law.

It is contempt of court.
There's an anonymity order in place.

If I was a victim,
I would be frightened

if information about me
was shared on the internet.

And if I was somebody
that was thinking about

helping the police, I would be
thinking twice about helping them.

No justice, no peace!

21 years after the BNP first jumped
on the gang grooming story,

another more surprising
intervention, from Elon Musk,

reignites a national debate.

CHEERING

Yes!

In a flurry of posts,

Elon Musk accuses Keir Starmer
directly

of failing to prosecute
gang grooming cases

during his time as
Director of Public Prosecutions.

Those that are spreading
lies and misinformation

as far and as wide as possible,

they're not interested in victims.

They're interested in themselves.

We need the truth.

This is not about Elon Musk.

It's endangering.

There's a culture of silence.

We are going to act.

Musk's intervention does, however,

prompt the Government to respond
four days later.

We will make it mandatory
to report abuse,

making it an offence
to fail to report

or cover up child sexual abuse.

I've wrestled with this issue
for nearly 30 years

and witnessed countless promises
from politicians,

countless reports and inquiries,

countless apologies from police,
councils, and social services.

And throughout, victims' lives

have been played with
in a game of political football.

For me, this isn't about race
or culture or class.

My focus remains the same as it was
three decades ago.

Where is the justice
for the victims?

In Manchester, Chantelle
is still waiting for answers.

You've been engaging with Greater
Manchester Police since 2019.

Yeah. And we're now in... 2024.

And nothing's been done.

What's taking so long
to charge them?

I feel like this should have
already been dealt with,

this court case,
it should have been done.

I feel like I've put myself
through all that for nothing.

I don't feel like
anything's changed.

I just want what they promised me
at the beginning,

and that was justice.

After asking about her abuser,

who was apparently identified
as a police officer,

Steph has not heard from Greater
Manchester Police since 2021.

Do you expect
to hear anything from them?

No. No.

I've give up hope. Erm...

I've been willing
to give a statement,

I've been willing to put these men
in jail where they belong

and to help other people.

And it's like they're choosing
not to...listen to me.

Because it was one of their own,
I do genuinely believe

that's one of the reasons
why they didn't bring him in.

Since Greater Manchester Police
began reinvestigating

the Augusta perpetrators in 2019,

so far, only one person has been
convicted for child sexual offences.

This is an operation
spanning six years.

What it absolutely clear
is that the mistakes,

the systemic failure
to protect children

of 10 and 20 years ago,

as night follows day,

could not be repeated
in Manchester today.

Of that I am confident.

There's no point
spending all that money

and all that time
getting victims' hopes up,

and at the end of it
we get an apology

and a protestation that
everything's hunky-dory now,

this is a problem of the past,
it doesn't happen now.

I'm sorry, that's bullshit,
because it is happening now.

No-one's ever been prosecuted
for raping you or... No.

..grooming or trafficking? No. No.

Do you want people to be arrested?

I didn't when I was younger,
but now I do, yeah, all of them.

They never got charged for me,

so now they've moved on
to the next person.

It's probably
some other little girl now.

It's only girls that
don't have dads like me

and don't have family

that are crying out for help
and no-one's seeing.

It's not often Scarlett cries,

and she rang me up last night
in tears,

and she couldn't understand why
I've stuck by her through all this.

And I explained to her
she's my daughter

and...it's unconditional love.

14 years on from Jade's conviction,

she now lives with her children,
and she's very close to her mum.

But she remains
a convicted sex offender.

I would really love
to overturn my charge

and get my name cleared
and prove that I was a victim,

because that is what I was.

And the person that essentially
was your groomer,

has he ever had any charges
brought against him? No.

No, still walking free, living his
happy life with his wife and kids.

At my kids' school,
they do a minor CRB check

if you want to go with the kids
on a school trip.

Never been able to do that.

I've never been able to experience
a school trip with my kids...

..because they class me
as a sex offender.

I'm angry,

angry that the five women
in our film

estimate that they've been
collectively abused

by hundreds and hundreds of men,

and that out of all of them,

only Erin has had justice,
against just seven men.

I'd hoped I would never have to
return to this subject,

but we know from all our
conversations over the last year

that our five women
represent thousands

and thousands and thousands
across the country

whose voices have never been heard.

I think everything I've been through
has only made me tougher. Yeah.

I'm a really good parent
to my children,

and I feel like if I wouldn't
have gone through all that,

maybe I wouldn't be
the person I am today.

I am proud of who I am
and what I've been through.

I'm not ashamed any more -

I was. For many years,
I had this big dark hole,

but now I feel a lot better
about everything.

OK, well done. That's brilliant.

Thank you. You're welcome.
Are you OK? Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you. Let's cut. Thank you.
Cheers.

Well done. You did great.
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.