I am unsure whether to put this on here, I might get ripped apart for what some might consider 'stating the bleedin' obvious' but I'm going to anyway.
This year my 15 year old daughter came home late (due in at 10 - arrived home at 11:30). She'd told me that she was going to the cinema with her friend. When she didn't arrive home I called her friends parents, her friend had been home all evening. Obviously I panicked. When she eventually arrived home we had a huge row and she admitted she had been out with '2 lads'. I grounded her for being late and lying. The next day she ran away.
I contacted the police who informed me that another girl in her school had been involved with an asian grooming gang; the police found my daughter the same night but referred her to social services because they believed she may have been exploited.
Since that day our lives blew up. That night when she supposedly went to the cinema 2 men had picked her up from my doorstep and took her away for sex. I discovered that she had a private number for a taxi driver who she would call at the top of the road to take her to school (I thought she was getting the bus, as always!). She also admitted that on several occasions when she was supposed to be sleeping at her friends she was actually with these men. On one occasion she had been given drink and drugs, fell asleep, and woke up to a man in his late 20s having sex with her. Obviously we were devastated, and the guilt was overwhelming, I'd failed at protecting her by trusting her word.
The police told me to not ground/punish her because it would make these men more appealing to run to; it was an horrific time, I didn't want her to leave the house knowing she would go straight to them, so I put a 'spy' app on her phone. From this I found that she was still meeting these people, on one occasion I found 2 men sat in a car outside her school, the same 2 men who had taken her that night when she was supposed to be at the cinema. I videoed and confronted them; contacted the police, they said they weren't committing a crime!?! It was becoming difficult to protect her from this gang, and from herself really. She couldn't see what they were doing at all.
I don't want to go into every little detail because I don't want to lose the reason for my writing in such a lengthy post. My daughter doesn't fit the 'stereotype' for the victims of this sort of crime. Me and her dad have been together for 19 years and have a good relationship, she's never witnessed any sort of violence/bullying/intimidation. She's currently doing her GCSEs and is predicted As throughout, even when she ran away she took her school books! She's mostly a confident young girl and up until those months I had a good relationship with her, or so I thought. Obviously I'm not saying that those who DO fit the stereotype are fair game to these scum, I just want to make the point that actually, there is no stereotype.
I had become too relaxed, I had believed she was staying at her friends, I stupidly had stopped checking and just trusted her; something I will regret forever, by not checking I feel I had practically giftwrapped my daughter to these men. They could do what they wanted because they knew she had lied and would feel unable to confide in us.
Please, please, please check where your teens are. I know some might find this patronising and think I'm an idiot for not knowing what was going on under my nose (I still can't believe it, so I understand this) but I genuinely had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. Had she not arrived home late that evening I probably still wouldn't know. These people are clever! they worm there way into your teens lives, offer them free lifts, give them free takeaways, invite them to parties with drink/drugs - they are ruthless. They will even wait outside your home, outside schools! It has taken months of intense work with my daughter, from me and also from social services (who have been brilliant btw, if you suspect this is happening to your child please contact them) for her to understand what these men were doing. I'm probably guilty of painting a picture of paedophiles/rapists as being monsters, when actually, as she has found, they are often charming, good looking young men.
Also, check your teens FB friend list, for older males or ones that live outside the area - my daughter's was full of these people. Question if they turn up with new perfume, clothes, even cigarettes - this was one thing I noticed but suspected her and her friends had been shoplifting (now, I wish they had!!). I had lost contact with her friends parents, obviously at 15 year old I no longer stand at the school gates, since speaking to the parents its become apparent that this was happening to all of these girls, not just my daughter. Please, always check where they are. I have been told by the police and social services that these grooming gangs are a huge problem in my area (the north east) - it is unbelievable how they can infiltrate your family and steal your daughter from under your nose. I wish you could all meet my daughter, she's not stupid, yet she believed them?
Sorry for the ridiculously long post; I hope I don't sound patronising, probably most mums do what I stupidly didn't anyways, but if it helps one mum/dad question their teens activities its worth it. These people are scum, please check.