aakash_2410
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2010
- Messages
- 2,249
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
Nine men have been convicted of sexually exploiting young girls in Greater Manchester. One of their victims tells her story.
The testimony of one of the five victims of the Rochdale grooming ring revealed the depth of the exploitation she suffered.
Speaking at the conclusion of a 10-week trial at Liverpool Crown Court, the woman, who cannot be identified, said she was forced to have sex with up to five different men in a day, at least four times a week.
"At first I felt really bad, dirty and ashamed. But after a while it had been going on for so long and with so many different men, I didn't feel anything towards it anymore.
"What they did to me was evil, they ripped away my dignity, my self-esteem," she said.
The grooming and subsequent abuse - which centred around the town of Heywood - began when the woman, now aged 19, was a 15-year-old schoolgirl.
"We would get free alcohol and cigarettes, food, free taxis," she said.
"At first I thought it was great because nothing sexual had happened, I thought I could just get all of this stuff for free."
The men, she said, were friendly at first, simply chatting with the girls now and again in a takeaway shop.
"It made me feel like I was pretty. I never thought that they would do what they did to me, because you don't think that would happen."
'Wanted something back'
But the situation changed and she was raped by one of the men.
"He asked me to come upstairs and I didn't really think anything of it," she explained.
"He then was saying all the things he had bought for me, and he wanted something back for it.
"I tried to say no in a nice way, but he wasn't having it."
After a while, the girl was being driven to different houses or flats where there would be other men waiting.
The abuse continued for months, until one evening she was arrested by police for smashing the counter at a takeaway where some of the men met the girls.
It was then she told police for the first time what was going on.
"I was scared telling them, because I didn't know what the consequences would be from the men.
"They threaten you, and you're scared of them, and that's how they make you do it."
'Brainwashing'
The men led the girls to believe they were in relationships with some of them, and it was normal to have sex.
But she added: "They're just brainwashing you so you think you love them so you do what they say.
"It's not a normal relationship when your boyfriend is getting you to sleep with all his friends for money."
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) investigated Kabeer Hassan and another man, aged 59.
But when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reviewed the case in summer 2009, it was decided that the girl "would not be viewed as a credible witness" - a decision not appealed against by GMP - and no prosecution was brought.
"I felt let down," she said. "I know they believed me, they said to me at the end that something should have been done."
The abuse then continued, with a number of men who she had not seen before joining in.
Social services became involved when she started to arrive at school dirty and sometimes smelling of alcohol.
At the time, she was living with an older victim but when she became pregnant by one of the men, she moved back in with her parents.
'Suicide attempts'
She continued to receive phone calls from her abusers, and cars with drivers she recognised were parking outside.
"I wouldn't go out of the house for nine months on my own without my mum or dad, because I was frightened," she said.
Nazir Afzal regrets that the CPS dropped the original grooming case
"Eventually I moved out of the area as I couldn't stay there anymore."
It was not until summer 2011 that Nazir Afzal, the new regional head of the CPS, reversed the decision not to prosecute.
By then police were investigating allegations from another girl about on-street grooming in Heywood.
This eventually led to the successful prosecution of nine men for offences included rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.
The woman now wants her story to be told to help people spot the signs of grooming, which she describes as "a common thing that not enough people know about".
She plans to become a social worker, partly due to the ordeal she suffered while still a vulnerable young girl.
"It will always be there, but I know how to deal with it," she said.
"I've had a lot of problems in the past, suicide attempts and drinking, but now I know something is being done to prevent it happening again."
Race connection:
The jailing of nine men who sexually exploited girls as young as 13 in Greater Manchester shone a light on a murky underworld that exists across the UK but few people are aware of.
Some have focused on how the victims were white and their tormentors nearly all of Pakistani heritage and questions were raised over whether race was a factor in this case. Is there any consensus about whether race has played a part in such crimes?
Liverpool Crown Court heard how victims were plied with drink and drugs and "passed around" for sex as though they were "worthless and beyond respect".
Judge Gerald Clifton said to the men, eight of Pakistani origin and one from Afghanistan, that one of the factors leading to the abuse was "the fact that they were not part of your community or religion".
But to what extent, if any, is race an issue in such cases? And are these crimes indicative of a wider problem?
It is not the first time such a claim has been raised.
Last year, former home secretary Jack Straw said some UK Pakistani men saw white girls as "easy meat" for sex abuse.
Mr Straw said there was a "specific problem" in some areas where Pakistani men "target vulnerable white girls".
At the time, fellow Labour MP Keith Vaz said it was not a cultural problem and it was wrong to stereotype a whole community.
Following the latest convictions Mr Vaz, who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee, told the BBC: "I do not believe it's a race issue."
And assistant chief constable Steve Heywood, of Greater Manchester Police, said the case was not about race, but "adults preying on vulnerable young children".
But some disagree.
Mohammed Shafiq, of the Ramadhan Foundation, which aims to promote better understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, said: "Clearly, as members of the Pakistani community we've got to say to ourselves, yes, we've got a problem. We've got a problem because these people think white girls are worthless, they think they can use these girls.
"This is not sex, this is rape, these were children and I think we've got to speak out against this very openly."
Mark Williams-Thomas, a former police detective and child protection expert, believes there is a trend which he says he was first made aware of 10 years ago in which men of Pakistani heritage abuse white girls.
But the former detective called for a more nuanced view of the problem, saying it was important to distinguish between grooming and the trafficking of young girls.
"Attacks in isolation and grooming tend to be perpetrated by white men. Collectively, the transferring of girls among young men for sex involves Pakistani men," he said.
"This is a significant problem and it's been going on for many years.
"Evidence tells us that there is a significant problem with Pakistani Asian men. We've got to be bold enough to stand up and say this is a problem and not let it get hijacked by the far right. It's only now that people are prepared to discuss this."
Mr Williams-Thomas said he was unsure why the trend appeared to exist, stressing it was "a complex issue" that could involve factors such as disparities in the age of sexual consent in the UK compared with other countries and their perception of females. He said there needed to be research and better cultural engagement.
He cited research by Ella Cockbain and Helen Brayley, of UCL's Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, which suggested the vast majority of more than 50 individuals charged with trafficking offences were of 'Pakistani Asian' origin.
However, the report's authors have previously said they were surprised their research had been cited in support of claims that such offences were widespread.
Statistics about child exploitation and race are difficult to verify.
Research conducted by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) on "localised grooming" - where children have been groomed and sexually exploited by an offender having first met in a public place - looked at 1,217 offenders.
The findings, published last year, found 30% of offenders - 367 - were white. Some 28% were Asian, of whom 11 were Bangladeshi, 45 were Pakistani and 290 were described as "Asian Other".
Of the victims, 61% of the 2,083 victims were white, while just 3% were Asian. Some 33% were of referred to as "other".
But the report stresses national conclusions about ethnicity cannot be drawn from the data available because it relies on limited nationwide information, with much of the data coming from a limited number of areas.
Ms Brayley told the BBC it was "difficult to know who is involved and what is going on" because different police forces and agencies use terms such as "localised grooming", "street grooming" and "internal trafficking" which all have slightly different meanings.
"You're not always comparing like with like," she said, explaining it meant the police had a "difficult job" establishing the scale of the problem or trends involving perpetrators.
Ms Brayley said a clear definition of the offence would make it easier to gather definitions of the offence and establish a nationwide picture.
Source: BBC News - Rochdale grooming case: Victim's story
BBC News - Grooming and race - what do we know?
59 yea-old men repeatedly raping a 13 year-old girl is just not right!
This disgusting and sickening!
I feel ashamed to call myself Asian!
No wonder more and more Indians have now started to identify themselves as 'British Indian' and not 'British Asian'.
