Finished the whole report. Can't really add much to all of the discussion except for acknowledging how horrific it is. I'm going to try and piece together some aspects from the testimony summaries, the anonymous inquiry quotes, and the heavily redacted Institutional Failures section.
Praying for all of you britbongs. Praying for all those girls and the family members who actually cared about them enough to try and save them.
Here's what I have so far
Survivor Quotations
“I was taken into a bathroom by the girl who had brought me there and told to
shave. She then told me that we were being sold to the men for sex. I had not
known this beforehand. I did not want to participate, but I was frightened,
trapped, and complied out of fear. I cannot describe in detail what happened in
the bedroom. I was sexually exploited and abused by an adult man. Afterwards,
we were made to sleep in a small child’s bed belonging to a toddler.”
(Jane)
Rape gang survivor: “I disclosed directly to staff at [the children’s home] what
was happening to me, including the sexual exploitation, the repeated trips to flats,
the involvement of adult men, the exchange of money, and the reasons for my
rapid and dangerous weight loss. I explained that I was frightened and felt
trapped. I was told words to the effect that this did not constitute trafficking, that
I was over 16, and that what was happening was a matter of ‘choice.’ Police were
not contacted at that stage, and no immediate protective action was taken.”
(Jane)
“So [rape gang member] is like, do you want to kiss me? And I’m like, no, not
really. He’s like, right, okay, we can get it on. And I was like, no. I said, I’m on
my period. That was the first thing that came to mind, I wasn’t. But that was my
first excuse. He’s like, oh, it’s okay, it doesn’t matter. So I was like, no, no, no,
pushing him away. And he pulled my legs forward so that I was almost laid, like
slouched. And he pushed me back. And he pulled my pants down, got on top of
me and raped me. And I was saying no, I was kicking at the same time. I was 12
years old. This guy, just so I can say this clearly, was taken to trial and caught.
He was put on a retrial and he walked away. He’s now walking the streets.”
(Chloe)
Inquiry panellist: “Were there any other objects that they raped you with?”
Rape gang survivor: “Coca-Cola bottles. Keys, for some reason. Somebody tried
to put a baseball bat up there.”
Panellist: “Do you think they were doing these things for sexual gratification?”
Survivor: “It’s about harm. They don’t care. They don’t care about you. They
usually try doing these things after they’ve done the sexual bit that they wanted
to do. Once they’ve finished, that’s it. They can do what they want to you. That’s
how it seemed.”
(Chloe)
“I remember the first time I was taken into the sexual health clinic by my social
worker. She walked me in there and it turned out that I had chlamydia in my
throat and vagina. And I’d also got gonorrhoea at that time. At the same time,
they also diagnosed me with genital warts. And then a few months later, I was
taken back again. I was diagnosed with chlamydia again, gonorrhoea again, but
this time it was also a pelvic inflammatory disease. Never once did any nurse or
doctor question any of that.”
(Chloe)
“When I was 15 they trafficked me to Birmingham. I walked into the bathroom in
the flat and there was a dead girl in the bath.”
(Whitney)
“I was told by [female gang member] to gain more weight, she said Somali men
like big women, I needed to eat more and was trying to feed me.”
(Jane)
“I went into the flat expecting a house party. Instead I was met with a cream flat
that smelled very nice, very calm environment. Pictures of children, a child, a
little girl on the wall, and six Somali men in the lounge sitting around a coffee
table chewing something.”
(Jane)
“I grew up in a middle class house with two parents that had been married for a
considerable time, and I think that’s quite important because most of the time the
idea is that grooming gang victims are in care or they’re runaways or they’re
from generally lower class backgrounds, and I say this to just defeat the
presumption that it’s only a vulnerable or stereotypically vulnerable girl that can
be groomed, because the perpetrators are insidious and they’ll target anyone, they
will find weakness or vulnerability anywhere.”
(Anna)
“It was actually quite a brutal sexual assault. He dug his fingernails into me and
to me, it seemed there was no actual pleasure for him out of that. It was just
control and actually exerting power over someone who’s clearly vulnerable and
showing, ‘I have you where I want you.’”
(Anna)
“At the sentencing, she was sat behind us, directly behind us in the public gallery.
Throughout the whole sentencing, she was constantly saying, fucking liars, lying
white bitches. She was a white woman herself who I imagine may have been
groomed and has obviously now married into the family, shouting obscenities at
us. She said to me that God will be the witness for what happens to me.”
(Anna)
“It started when I was 13, [I was raped by] probably about six, seven hundred
different men over the three years.”
(Michelle)
Inquiry Panellist: “Did the NHS play a part and were you able to talk to
them?”
Rape gang survivor: “I went when I was 13 with chlamydia, and then I got
genital herpes, and then I had a miscarriage. And that was all between 13 and 15.
So they knew something was going on. I did go once and I explained to the doctor
because I was like, can you give me some antidepressants or something? And the
doctor said, well, I don’t think that’s a warrant enough to give you those when
you’re too young. The NHS is complicit.”
(Michelle)
Rape gang survivor: “[The gangs] are untouchable. They are. Because nobody
wants to admit that there’s a problem because they don’t want to be deemed as
racist. And also because it goes higher up and they don’t want it to be blown
open.”
(Michelle)
“They said they wanted to take me back to meet their families. So luckily I didn’t
have a passport, otherwise I might not be sat here right now.”
(Fiona)
“I remember being with my friend, and she lived in a children’s home. And they
would come and pick us up from outside. And then the care home would ring the
police and obviously tell them. And then the police would come out, and they
would call us prostitutes. I don’t think the services, even down to social services, I
don’t think they really cared. I think that they had the same thought as most
other people, that we were prostitutes and that we wanted it. I don’t think they
saw it how it really was, that it was grooming and rape. They blamed us for it. It
was our choice.”
(Michelle)
“It wasn’t just rape. It was violence as well. I’ve had a gun held to my head. I’ve
been beaten so that I’m literally covered, head to toe in bruises. That was when I
was spiked, when I was drugged. I’ve had a knife at my throat because he wanted
me to ‘sort out’ 10, 15 cars full of men. I’d get kidnapped. I don’t think people
realise, I think they think it’s rape, but it was torture as well. I’d be kidnapped
and I’d be locked in a room. And I’d be beaten. I’d be told if I don’t do this, I’m
not going to go home. So it was a lot more than just rape.”
(Taylor)
“I was beaten, black and blue, raped. Not only sexually raped with their body
parts themselves, but with objects as well. There was an incident – I was taken to
hospital. It’s not even in my medical records. I was taken to A&E because my
vagina was split open from a glass bottle.”
(Chloe)
“The taxis would drop a girl off, they’d go in the shop, that taxi would leave, clear
the job, then another taxi would pull up. Girls are half drunk, they’re just getting
in a taxi thinking it’s the same one and then they’re being took to places to get
raped. And there’s a chat, there was a group chat for all the drivers, so they were
all communicating with each other. Mainly Muslim taxi drivers.”
(Taylor)
“I was actually married to an Asian guy and fully converted. Through the imam.
The imam came to my house. I was fully converted.”
(Jen)
“I heard [the police officer’s] radio go and I heard them say that they was taking
[my daughter] to Mohammed’s brother’s address. I begged them not to take her
there. I was like, they’re the people that are doing this to her. You cannot take her
there. They’re gonna kill her. Because I did believe they was going to. And they
didn’t listen to me. They did take her there. And like I said, she was abused there
by them, by Mohammed.”
(Victoria)
Institutional Failures
Greater Manchester Police (including Tameside)
Greater Manchester Police repeatedly failed
Marlon. PC Redacted, later
dismissed, attended a multi-agency meeting and shouted at
Marlon to stop
reporting his daughter missing. He did this in front of professionals. Officers on
the Missing from Home team frequently failed to return calls. CCTV footage
captured officers discussing not waking the father when they attended at 3 a.m.
The force failed to enforce bail conditions on a known rapist who immediately
rang
Scarlet and threatened her life. Associates of the perpetrator
attended the family home and the police response was delayed and dismissive.
Redacted daughter was left in the company of groomers on multiple occasions.
The force treated Redacted as the problem rather than as a dutiful parent trying
to protect his child.
Merseyside Police
Merseyside Police failed
Rachel’s daughter and her family. DC Redacted and PC
Redacted discouraged the 12-year-old rape victim from pursuing justice. They
emphasised paperwork, delay, and ‘her word against his’ as reasons not to proceed
with a prosecution. Justice for a 12-year-old who was raped was deemed too much
hard work. This led her daughter to withdraw her complaint. The force failed to
act on video evidence of assaults, threats, and ongoing harassment. After her
daughter’s death, the family faced continued intimidation with inadequate
protection from the police.
Wolverhampton Social Services
Wolverhampton Social Services failed
Whitney and her daughter. Social worker
Redacted received repeated reports of adult men with the child yet took no
action. The service refused relocation requests, downgraded risk levels, and
closed the case despite explicit statements that the child was being sexually
exploited.
Whitney’s own childhood grooming history was used to blame her as a
parent. The NRM later recognised the child as a trafficking victim without
informing the mother
The main reason I have for doing this is wanting to know where each case primarily took place.
Chloe’s primarily took place in West Yorkshire
Whitney’s case primarily took place in Wolverhampton
Rachel’s case primarily took place in Merseyside
