Five sexual abuse survivors who were groomed, trafficked and exploited by drug gangs across Britain have come forward to accuse police of failing them.
The women were teenagers when they were raped by gang leaders, forced to sleep with many other men and physically abused while selling drugs in Britain.
In one case, a victim said gang members operated on a London Estate took photos of her and threatened to distribute them if she did not have sex with their employees.
They spoke of the “shame” they felt after years of abuse, but claimed some detectives were more interested in arresting the drug dealers and tracking down the gangs.
A new one BBC The documentary ‘Britain’s Forgotten Girls’ reveals how this serious exploitation has continued over the past twenty years despite mounting evidence.
Drug gangs in towns and cities target young girls for sexual and criminal exploitation, with thousands of children still at risk despite repeated warnings to authorities.
In tonight’s program on BBC Two at 9pm, five survivors of abuse have told their stories for the first time – four of whom have revealed their identities. Among them is Christine, who was exploited from the age of 13 when she moved from London to Coventry.
She said: “Looking back, I think the move really threw me off. Everyone at school already had a friendship group, because I moved there so late. So at school I didn’t really feel like I had any friends.’
Abuse victim Christine had to sleep with drug gang members from the age of thirteen
Christine said her abuser found her through a group chat, adding: ‘He came up to me outside the chat and he was just talking to me. He said he wanted to meet in person. So we met.”
“I remember him walking through the doors… when he walked through the door I thought, oh my God, that’s a grown man. I was 13 and he was 23.
On her 14th birthday, Christine said he asked her to sleep with his friends to help him, explaining, “I felt disgusting.”
This quickly became an expectation, with Christine forced to sleep with many different gang members. She said, “After that, I lost count of how many times. Some were his friends, some were his age, some looked older. I don’t know who they were.’
The exploitation soon turned into physical violence, with Christine recalling that her ribs were once broken. She was sexually and physically abused for more than eight years and claimed that police and social services regularly failed to help her.
Christine said: ‘I was involved in social work for a long time, and over the years they discovered I was in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend who was older than me. But nothing was actually done.”
She said she didn’t feel police cared that she was being abused or sexually exploited, adding: “I sat in interviews for hours… but the moment I told them about the drugs and the houses, everything changed.”
Christine claimed that the police wanted to arrest her boyfriend for drug crimes, and that they wanted information about his gang. “Little old me coming and saying, ‘This is the abuse I’m going through,’ wasn’t enough,” she said.
Another woman, Violet, was involved in a drug gang in south London from the age of 13 – and told how members raped and sexually abused her.
Police arrested the men for drug offenses, but she claimed their response to her question about the rape investigation was that officers “had bigger fish to fry.”
Violet later received compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, but was told in a letter that her case had been closed without her attending court.
She described the experience as “quite shocking, quite offensive, quite insensitive.”
A third survivor named Holly also claimed police failed to help her.
Holly was taken into care at the age of 12 and sold drugs in Manchester city centre. Over the next four years, until she was 16, she was sexually abused numerous times by gang members.
“I had to sleep with different men,” Holly explained. “After a while it just became normal for me.”
She said she convinced herself that this meant she was wanted and part of a family that cared for her.
Holly was also used as a courier by the gang, transporting drugs to the Isle of Man, Newcastle, Wales and London – but she found herself in dangerous situations and was also sexually abused by drug users.
A fourth survivor of abuse is Annie, who grew up in Eltham, south-east London, and was exploited as a teenager.
Violet was raped and sexually abused from the age of thirteen when she was involved in a drug gang
When she was fourteen, she met three boys who were part of a gang that ran a local estate, sold drugs and engaged in other criminal activities. Annie was raped by the three older boys.
The boys took photos of her and later said they would distribute them if she did not have sex with other employees. Annie’s abuse by the gang continued for years.
Those photos were later posted online and Annie’s school was notified before she told police. But those who abused her were never brought to justice.
“I have a letter here written by the police,” Annie said. ‘It says here that the specific reasons in this case which have prevented me from referring it to the CPS are as follows.
‘Based on the available evidence there is no realistic prospect of a conviction in this case, which is why I have closed the investigation.
‘The fact that they didn’t do anything really made me feel like it wasn’t abuse. It caused me to carry a lot of shame. I started to feel like it was my fault.’
Connie Muttock, director of policy and public affairs at children’s think tank Center for Young Lives, said: ‘The abuse and exploitation of girls in drug gangs is a widespread problem in Britain.
“This is not about a particular city or area, particular demographic groups. As long as we have had drug gangs in this country, there have also been girls who have been abused and forced into them. Even more shocking is that this has been going on for years.”
She also emphasized that this is a problem separate from the grooming gangs.
“For grooming gangs the primary aim is often the sexual exploitation of those girls, but the primary aim of a drug gang is to make money from selling drugs and other criminal activities,” Ms Muttock said.
She added that girls are brought in to make money, but at the same time they are often sexually exploited.
In 2012, the sexual exploitation of children in gangs was the subject of an investigation by Sue Berelowitz, the then Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England.
The research covered towns, villages and local authorities that were largely in rural areas – and found that more than 16,500 children showed signs of being at risk of abuse by welfare groups or criminal gangs.
But Ms. Berelowitz recalled in the documentary: “Some people, including people in higher positions … found it very difficult to accept the true magnitude of what was going on.”
Professor Carlene Firmin, who conducted research for the study, added: ‘There was certainly resistance within the government.
‘You don’t want to hear that thousands of children across England are at risk of being sexually exploited in different forms of exploitation that you have no policy to support and that require a lot of resources.’
Sue Berelowitz, former deputy children’s commissioner for England, said people in senior positions ‘found it very difficult to accept the true scale of what was going on’ after her review
During an audit last year, Baroness Louise Casey investigated the grooming gangs and found that systemic failures and institutional paralysis had allowed them to operate for years.
Although the issue of girls being exploited by drug gangs was not a key part of this review, it will now be examined as part of the Government’s grooming gang inquiry launched in response to the report.
Responding to the documentary, Acting Chief Constable Rebecca Riggs, head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council for Child Protection, Abuse and Investigations, apologized to those who said they had been let down by authorities.
She said: ‘It is devastating to hear the experiences of the women in this programme, and I recognize the lasting impact that both the crime itself and their interactions with authorities can have on victims and survivors.
“If people felt like they weren’t listened to, weren’t believed, or didn’t get the response they needed, it can exacerbate the trauma they’ve already experienced. I’m very sorry about that.
“I am sorry for those who felt unheard, for those who did not receive the service they should have expected, and for those whose trust in the police was damaged as a result.
“We have not always got it right, and where we have failed victims, we continue to acknowledge that and learn from it.
‘While it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases, some of the cases referred to may already be included in Operation Beaconport, the national inquiry launched following the Casey Review.
‘Others may potentially fall within the scope of the Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel, which provides an independent process to assess whether investigative opportunities have been missed.
“Our focus remains on supporting victims and survivors, pursuing perpetrators where possible, and ensuring that police continue to learn from the past so that every victim receives the professional, compassionate and thorough response they deserve.”
Britain’s Forgotten Girls airs tonight at 9pm on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer
