@Starisnotanumber
15 year old Gemma (the name that was used in the press) who ran away with her teacher Jememy Forrest in 2017 was treated as a child and a victim of grooming.
Ms Begum was also a child and groomed I can't see that the law can be interpreted in 2 ways
Apparently it can when one child is white & middleclass.
Seems that the prevailing opinion is that a brown faced child running away to meet the older man who has been messaging her online and him having sex with her is completely different. As though brown children are somehow more able to consent and aren't more vulnerable from the outset by their primary parent being dead and the other one already putting her at risk of radicalisation through his own views.
Much the same as County Lines grooming, really. It's an issue when the girl is blonde and blue eyed, but when it's a BAME child of either sex, oh, they're criminal and know exactly what they are doing.
All children, any sex, any race, are vastly more vulnerable to grooming with a dead parent, close relative or friend. It's more significant a factor than income, status, ethnicity, religion, or anything else. It's why some council/police/social services teams are now putting efforts into providing grief counselling for children who have lost friends or relatives through gang activity as well as those who have lost parents through illness or injury.
When you fail and don't pick it up, you don't abandon them as being hopeless. You accept your fuck ups and you take responsibility, not hang a groomed child who has done terrible things as a result of their programming and suffered themselves as well, all on the spurious basis that a brown faced child was exempt from the laws regarding the age of consent that are there to protect children like her, as well as the big eyed blondes.