Three Girls (BBC 9pm)

[ASauvingnonADay]

Looking forward to watching this tonight. Feel it might be one to watch with your teenagers..

Ive now watched all three episodes. Im feeling angry so this post might not be coherent.

1. Naming Amber on the indictment when she wasnt even allowed to be there to defend herself WTF.

1. the lying that Sara and her team never passed any information to or informed the authorities. Bloody lying bastards. Then she got made redundant.

Agree with the above PPs that Sara deserves more recognition for what shes done.

Unfortunately most of the award ceremonies in this country tend to celebrate celebrity or financial achievements. Another problem this country has with priorities.

And no police officer from the 2008 investigation has even faced a disciplinary.

Unbelievable. If this had been fiction many would have said it was implausible.

Do you think most people were aware of the scale and spread of these grooming gangs before the drama was shown? Yes - I think it has been covered extensively in the national press. The reporting of it predates Jimmy Saville and other celebrity cases as well as care home scandals which seem to have followed a similar pattern. What they have in common is victims who were unlikely to be believed for whatever reason. I don't see how people could fail to be aware of it unless they are the sort of people who say they never read the papers or watch to news because they find it too upsetting (in which case you can hardly blame the press for failing to keep them informed).

I do believe the Guardian choose what news to print on the basis of what fits their political agenda Every newspaper decides what to print on the basis of their political agenda.

In fact Sara was lied about twice. That social worker told Hollys parents that Sara had told them (SS) that Holly was a prostitute.

SS and the police behaved in an appalling ,mentally abusive gaslighting way.

The one that got me was the defence examining holly. When he asked if the man who raped her was small.
SHE was a fucking child

I think social services and the police completely failed to the point where both should be put into special measures and management replaced. Instead they have protected these people. For as long as people like this are allowed to get away with failure these children will continue to be abused.

woodpigeon what's your theory as to why the Guardian isn't punishing news about grooming in places other than Rochdale and Rotherham?

The Guardian has reported crimes outside Rochdale. I live near Peterborough and just checked the Guardian for those convictions and there is plenty on them - not since June 2016, but that's quite a short time and I'm not sure if there have been any convictions since then anyway?

I've searched the local paper and they have reports of the same convictions as the Guardian, nothing more recent.

I haven't seen this mentioned by anyone else so far but, white British men make up 95% of the perpetrators of CSE usually operating alone or in 2/3's. Muslims make up around 4% of the British population. So the stats are pretty much in proportion to the nations population once you account for all other nationalities and religions. Men of Asian background often dominate the night time economy in many parts of the UK. Vulnerable young people can often be without boundaries or are significantly rejecting the boundaries they have putting them in the position of hanging round takeaways, taxi offices, convenience stores etc late at night often without an adult being concerned about their whereabouts. The race/religion issue is being looked at from the wrong stance. It's there and needs discussion but not in such blunt and rigid ways.

It's there and needs discussion but not in such blunt and rigid ways. Oh not another one.

Another what? Another person who knows this topic inside out and was shouting from the rooftops like Sara in a different part of the country at the same time? Another person who actually understands this to a far deeper level than many posters here?

OutToGetYou Yes, the Guardian did report cases prior to June 2016.

Nationally there have been at least two large grooming gang cases since then as I mentioned earlier. The Calderdale gang in Halifax convicted in June 2016 and the Oxford gang from Operation Sabaton who were (mostly, some were a bit later I think) convicted in July 2016.

The Guardian reported neither of these gang convictions, although they had reported the charging of the Oxford gang in 2015.

I would think that a police person accused of racism would probably lose his or her job. Perhaps not now as things have moved on and there is much more talk about it in connection with immigration, but previously there were so many accusations against the police (no doubt some justified) that any police person being seen as racist would have to have been sacked, or at least demoted.
I think that caused people to avoid these types of cases and not want to be involved.
Perhaps that is why the Guardian stayed away from it. Hard to report without mention of race.

onlyconnect I'm not really sure why they aren't (if I am right). Perhaps they think it goes against their agenda in some way. In the same way as they didn't report the Cologne attacks for days, and deleted any readers' comments referring to them. Or print opinion pieces immediately after atrocities like the Nice attack saying we mustn't be angry. I don't know, I can't fathom it.

I think its totally counterproductive and really does not help community cohesion and tolerance to report so selectivly. I also think it demonstrates a lack of trust in their readers to be able to process the real news.

Anyway, I'm aware that I am starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy theorist. There are two big cases going through the courts (Oxford, again and Huddersfield) so I will be interested to see if they report these.

onlyconnect This Guardian article which I linked earlier perhaps gives an idea of the Guardian view.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/07/grooming-racialising-crime-tradition

Dubious claims about Muslim men grooming white girls hide legitimate worries about a system that fails victims of abuse

Specifically, the Times has marshalled evidence suggesting that these organised crimes are carried out almost exclusively by gangs of Pakistani Muslim origin who target white youngsters; and it quotes both police and agency sources who refer to a "conspiracy of silence" around the open investigation of such cases, amid fears of being branded racist or inflaming ethnic tensions in already precarious local environments.

The efforts of the Times to stand up this investigation are certainly considerable: selectively quoting or misquoting some groups, and inventing a category of "on-street grooming" that does not exist in law and was not recognised by any of the agencies I spoke to.

etc, etc

Anyway, I'm aware that I am starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy theorist. You said it. You were happy to take information cut and pasted from an EDL website, but you think The Guardian has some sort of agenda. I think I understand you perfectly.

the sunlight of investigative inquiry has yet to shine on our legal system which, all agencies agree, fails to cater to the needs of children who – groomed into acquiescence by practised abusers of all creeds and colours – don't present as the perfect victims our limited version of justice demands. I would say The Guardian has it in a nutshell here.

and back round in the circle we go.

You are contradicting yourself, you realise. First you questioned whether I could really be so silly as to think a newspaper would choose not to cover a story for political purposes. Then you said that all newspapers do it Now you are back to I'm odd because I think the Guardian has an agenda You can't have it both ways.

Can you point out to me what information I have taken from an EDL website?

Do you really think the Guardian doesn't have an agenda???

I haven't used any information from the EDL website. All the information and links I have given have been from newspaper or BBC sites and earlier on I linked to a book.

That really is the most shocking thing on this thread to you, isn't it, that someone would c&p from an EDL website?

Of course it has an agenda - I've already said so. Name me a newspaper which doesn't. I was disagreeing with you because I don't think it's true that newspapers haven't reported these cases - I've tried to explain to you why individual papers might not have reported every single one. You mentioned The Guardian and seemed surprised that it might have a particular political viewpoint. Obviously it does, but has nevertheless reported these cases - not just in the news pages, but also on its comment pages. You have now linked to an article in The Guardian from 2011 making exactly the same point as was made in the BBC drama - that the girls were let down by a system which found it hard to identify them as victims. I understand The Guardian's agenda - I'm struggling to understand yours.

I think cutting and pasting from an EDL website is entirely relevant when you are talking about people who might have an agenda.

Just watched all three episodes back to back have been in tears since Holly got her baby back and dad's speech. Absolutely shocking but brilliantly depicted by the BBC.

It was heartbreaking and so powerful. The actress who played Holly was exceptional in the court scene.

Do you really think the Guardian doesn't have an agenda??? It always has an agenda and usually one which makes me furious. They'd rather condemn vulnerable white girls than admit the racism against those white girls by Pakistani Muslims. I just don't get it. The horrific crimes. One girl had her tongue nailed to a table FFS.