Grooming gangs/child sexual exploitation - was it going on in your area in the 80s/90s/00s? Did you realise?

[WhichBitchIsWhich]

Prompted by another thread about the Telford sex abuse scandal, I'm wondering how widespread this really was (and maybe still is but today's teenagers aren't likely to be on MN to answer).

I grew up in a small Midlands town and was at secondary school between 1993 and 1997.

It was definitely going on there at the time, though I've only realised the scale and true extent of it in retrospect.

Girls (working class white girls, to be specific) from our school would regularly meet adult men who they called their boyfriends outside the gates at lunchtime and "go for a drive" in their cars, coming back with a McDonald's a while later. They were often collected at the end of the day by the same men. Some of us recognised this as abuse (or at least as not okay). I remember discussing it with friends a few times as a teenager and we certainly knew these men were not "boyfriends" as the girls involved said. It certainly wasn't a secret, the staff knew about it and watched it happen but said or did nothing (I assume, as it carried on year after year).

Most upsetting to me was a deaf girl with learning disabilities who was in my form group, who lived in a local authority children's home in the next town over. She was pregnant at 15 and I still remember someone asking her in class who the father was and her replying "just some fucking [racist four letter word beginning with p and ending with i]" (apologies for even hunting at the word but it's what she said). She didn't come back to school after she reached about 6 months pregnant and I heard from another girl who had lived in the same "care" home that she didn't get to keep her baby.

I realise now as an adult what was almost certainly happening to her

It was definitely happening in the Bedfordshire/Luton area in the 90s because my sister was someone who was a victim of CSE. Social services and police were useless because they didn't really know much about it then, apparently.

It's a trauma that effected every aspect of my sisters life until she eventually took her own life.

I grew up in a small market town. I wasn't aware of anything like this happening at my school, but I do know there were groups of young girls (12-14?) going around with older men (18+, 20s), generally drugs involved, plying the girls with alcohol. Unfortunately (?) I got to know about this later on because I was in quite a serious relationship with one of the men who told me all about it it wasn't a gang thing in that particular scenario, but it was seen as a perfectly ordinary scenario for adult men to be hanging around with truanting younger teens, some of who had some quite serious trauma. They didn't see it as exploitative but looking back it absolutely was! And what tended to happen in those circles was a relationship would break up but the men would get together with a different girl in the group and it would cause a temporary rift but everyone would make up again leading to some really confusing web-like intertangled families with half siblings all over the shop. I encountered that again, separately (though no doubt some links somewhere) when I had my own children and used sure start centres.

When that was seen as normal why would anyone question girls going off with older men?

People thought the girls were at fault FFS.

I thought this was a really interesting podcast which touches on the subject of abuse. The podcast is about debunking QAnon myths etc - it's talking about how the "satanic cult worship" QAnon myth is so harmful to the cause of helping actual abuse victims. Anyway when they interview the second woman in the podcast she says something about it not being hard to believe that the rich and powerful are child abusers (as QAnon say) but that's not because they're addicted to some chemical they are farming babies for, it's because they are men, and a certain percentage of men at some level abuse. There are male abusers absolutely everywhere. In our schools, in our care homes, in our churches, in our families and of course there will be politicians or police officers or businesspeople or leaders who are abusers who haven't been discovered yet. And the male host is really obviously uncomfortable/disbelieving about that.

Men really like the myth that abusers are some rare and seldom encountered phenomenon but unfortunately that is not the case. Any woman can tell you that. And any abusive man knows that there are so many of them the chances of ever being brought to task for any of it is extremely rare.

Just in my own family history unfortunately it's clear to me that they are everywhere. Not in my personal experience, thankfully.

When I was growing up, the coach of the local swimming coach was abusing several girls and young women, one of whom was in my class at school (after his conviction many years later she gave an interview and waved anonymity). I spoke then with the few people from my school days who I was still in contact with, and like them, had no clue at all.

Seeing her interview was like seeing a different person being voiced by the woman I had known.

I don’t remember it happening at my school but maybe I was being naive as I grew up quite protected and I wasn’t vulnerable at all. I remember a girl joined our school in year 11 from a nearby town where she lived in a care home and she became pregnant.

In my town now there is a girl who goes missing regularly. This has been going on for a couple of years and one of the police appeals said she is at risk of CSE. I worry about her because she is clearly vulnerable but soon will be classed as an adult and then what will happen?

Where I live, the gangs are white. And the police are corrupt and misogynist.

I absolutely agree. However I'm trying to point out that nearly all the different groups of gangs and pedophile networks were also allowed to continue for years because police didn't want to rock various boats.

It has never suited the rank and file police to deal with child sexual exploitation.
I believe the Asian grooming gang scandal is little different in that respect.

I'm not trying to downplay the race of the latest lot of visible perpetrators , I'm saying if we thought the victims to have value and the crime to be abhorrent enough, then who each bunch of perpetrators where, and local police politics wouldn't be able to make a difference to how the crime was dealt with.

Where do you live?

I live in the North and hate to say it but it wasn't just young white girls that this happened/happens to. It was Asian girls too. Unfortunately in the Asian culture when these things come to light, they're buried under the sand, hidden for the sake of 'honour' and often the girls are blamed as having taken part rather than being viewed as victims. It was rife when I was growing up in the 90's/00's. The media narrative of it being Asian men and young white girls infuriates me because Asian girls are also targeted by Asian men. In my field of work I also see a huge amount of white men grooming young white girls.

And black girls. The Jamaican community was rife with older Jamaican men getting young black and white girls pregnant. Similar to what Bertie decribes with the web of half siblings around in the 90s and 00s. You would be underage in a dodgy bar and it was just accepted that you'd be horrifically groped by a certain type of Jamaican man.

I really believe it's down to men and abusers are in every race and culture. It's far too easy to say it's just Asian men of Pakistani origin. It's not and grooming young girls and boys has been going on in the country for a very long time.

Yes. For example Operation Brooke in Bristol involved a large scale Somali grooming gang (victims were of many different ethnic backgrounds).

It involves men of every race and ethnicity.

Not the same thing but I was flashed by my priest age 14. I think about it although it does not upset me, he didn’t do anything. I’ve questioned myself for years.

Recently I emailed the church to find out who was the priest at the time I made my confirmation and they have ignored me.

After Saville I felt like I needed to report. But it’s quite a few years ago and doubt myself even though I clearly remember it happening.

One of the difference between white men who groom and sexually abuse boys and girls and other races is power. White men find it 10000x easier to get into positions of trust and power due to our systemic racist society (not saying individuals are racist). That's really the only difference in them all. White men manage to get into being cub leaders, priests, vicars, police officers, social workers, teachers easier than other races. A white man applying to volunteer at cubs would not be looked at the same as Asian man. That's what's not talked about when it comes up in the press about Pakistani pedophilie gangs. That's why, imo, it's been turned into a race issue rather than a societal issue on the culture of older men and young girls. Just look at the Sun counting down days to young girls birthdays so they could print their breasts. Sickening.

But it was the fact that authorities were scared to be seen as racist that meant gangs in Telford and Rotherham were allowed to get away with it. That wouldn't apply to a white gang, so where are these white gangs operating and why haven't they been stopped?

The truth is we don't even know the answer to those questions because the data hasn't been collected. It's insane.

Child abuse is too rife and too common for the police to tackle it. It's horrific. It's getting better, but it's still far too easy for abusers to get off scot free.

When I was a teenager in the late 80s, there was a group of girls at my school who, from about the age of 14, spent loads of time with a group of older men- hanging out at their flats, going to parties, driving around. At any time they each had a 'boyfriend' but they swapped who they were with regularly, and sometimes new 'friends' came on the scene. Everyone (pupils, staff and presumably their parents) knew what was going on but the general consensus was that they were just 'dirty'/'tarty' girls and a bit of a joke. Before the age of 16, 2 of them were pregnant (and who knows how many of them had abortions etc).

A family friend the same age as me, and her female friends used to go to an under 18s night at a club in their town when they were 14-16. They met 'boyfriends' there who were in their 20s. The night was marketed as a safe night for teens to enjoy dancing etc so I know that her parents had no idea that it was open to adults too. As far as I know, no-one every challenged why a group of grown men wanted to go to teen nights out. I learned recently that my friend was pregnant several times when she was under-age (she had abortions) and so did a number of her friends. She suffered terrible mental health problems as an adult and sadly took her own life recently. I can't help thinking things would have been different if she had not met these men.

Looking back, there was clearly abuse and grooming involved in both situations and lots of adults would have been able to see what was happening but nothing was challenged. In fact, the girls were treated as responsible for what was happening.

Not grooming, but also part of the general theme- a friend at University had a boyfriend who was 30 when she was 18. She told me she had met him when she was 14 and he was 26. He and his workmates used to see her and her friends waiting at the bus stop to go to school (in uniform) and got chatting to them. One of her friends also went out with his friend (also much older) and encouraged them to tell parents they were staying with eachother so they could spend nights/weekends with these men. By 18, her parents knew him, knew how they had met and welcomed him in to their home. By the time she was 19 they had split up and I often wonder if he was back to chatting up school girls.

So much of this seemed to be accepted as normal, even by people who would not behave that way themselves.

The idea that white men are treated more harshly by police than non-white men is laughable.

White men, especially if they're upper class and/or in positions of power, get away with all sorts. Nobody even cares. The police don't give a shit about girls, like they're going to prioritise a working class girl over a group of posh important white men?

The white grooming gang that tried to sex traffic me, the guy running it played golf with the local chief of police!

The fact the Home Office states that 90% of grooming gang are white, the fact that the majority of men convicted of child sexual offenses are white, the fact most men on the sex offenders registry are white, the fact all genuine statistics about grooming gangs do show that the majority are white, you can't just ignore all that.

The question you should be asking is why does the media ignore it, when they're all over Asian grooming gangs.

The idea that white men are treated more harshly by police than non-white men is laughable.

That's not what I'm trying to say. There's a specific context here.

The white grooming gang that tried to sex traffic me, the guy running it played golf with the local chief of police!

I'm so sorry that happened to you. Was this in the UK? Was that gang ever reported or put a stop to?

The fact the Home Office states that 90% of grooming gang are white, the fact that the majority of men convicted of child sexual offenses are white, the fact most men on the sex offenders registry are white, the fact all genuine statistics about grooming gangs do show that the majority are white, you can't just ignore all that.

The problem is that we don't actually have those statistics. The report the home office put out did not have the data for the majority of sex crimes they were reporting on. So we don't know who is committing these crimes. We need a lot better data to really understand what's going on and bring about justice.

People in authorities were more scared of being called racist than they were about girls being abused and raped and tortured.

And don't forget, occasionally, murdered. Charlene Downes was killed by her abusers and the rumours about what happened to her are truly terrible. Due to the bungled police inquiry into her disappearance not only has no one ever been held responsible, but those who were arrested subsequently received large payouts of public money. It's utterly sickening.

@zafferana I may be wrong but I don't even think they ever found her body .. how bloody awful

Vile disgusting pigs got away with this - I don't care what colour or religion they were

Just pure evil

I went to a private all girls school, in the late 80s a girl aged 13 at my school lost a lot of money. There was an investigation on how she had so much cash on her and she was excluded because she was a prostitute. Appalling victim blaming.

Another girl aged 14 was raped by a friend of her mother's she never said a word because she was embarrassed, one day she collapsed at tennis, it turned out she was pregnant. She left, had the baby and moved to live abroad, she became a psychatric nurse and returned to the school to speak about her experience in her thirties. Incredibly brave.

bungled police inquiry my arse. The police are corrupt as fuck.

Yes, in the UK.

Yes, reported to the police multiple times, they refused point blank to act.

I filed a formal complaint against the Met Police in 2020 and won an official apology and acknowledgment that they had mis-handled my case.

The investigation showed that the original 999 call and subsequent visit had not even been recorded. The two male police officers who visited my house and insisted on being alone with me in my bedroom at age 12, chose not to record that the visit had happened.

Unfortunately those involved had since left the force.

That is absolutely awful @DaniRabbity A formal apology is one thing but it can't compensate you for what they put you through. Fucking hell.

I'm trying to point out that nearly all the different groups of gangs and pedophile networks were also allowed to continue for years because police didn't want to rock various boats

Absolutely true. One of the (many) shocking things I noticed about the Saville documentary was that the police continued hanging out in his flat even after the allegations of abuse surfaced.

FWIW I was groped by my bf's dad whilst at university. Slightly different context, but he was RC, as was my bf. I am absolutely convinced that he would not have done it to a young RC woman, but I was C of E so (in his eyes) a lesser species.

This "othering" by race or religion - whoever is doing it - is perncicious and obscene, and (surprise surprise) it's women and children who are the main victims.

And yy to the PP who pointed out the Asian girl victims - my Sikh friend was targeted and was far from the only one.