Teenaged victim of a grooming gang was arrested 5 times

[BernardBlacksWineIcelolly]

The abuse began when she was 11

She spent five years being repeatedly raped and says police turned a blind eye despite knowledge of what was happening. When her rapists plied her with drugs to make it easier for them to assault her police arrested her and issued a warning for possession.

I'm sat at my desk feeling like I could cry for Cassie and her lost childhood

The fact that she was a girl stopped the police seeing that she was a child didn't it? misogyny wins over compassion, every, every fucking time

This is what happens to children who don't have parents to advocate for them. Why is the state failing children so comprehensively?

metro.co.uk/2019/05/19/police-arrested-grooming-victim-who-was-raped-by-100-men-9600860/

Maybe because this sort of thing has been going on for generations and the assumption that some girls are 'no good' is ingrained in police culture? And class maybe has a role to play too. Would a working class or traveller or immigrant mother advocating for her daughter in these circumstances even be listened to?

What a sickening story. Maybe our newly woke police can turn their attention to seeing what's really happening in these cases.

The attention given to non crimes just seems even more egregious when you read this doesn’t it

I’m so fucking angry I can barely sit still. I am going to make another donation to Harry the Owl’s campaign. The police need to sort their fucking act out

I knew it would be WEST YORKSHIRE POLICE. I knew it would be Calderdale.

The police are still doing this across Rochdale, Calderdale and Kirklees. West Yorkshire police told me only 3 weeks ago that a 14 year old drinking with 5 men and then getting in the back of a van with the, was her ‘lifestyle choice’. She is in a group home. The men know they can do as they please.

West Yorkshire police hate women, it is simple. Savile, Yorkshire ripper, grooming gangs, Karen white, the endless list of misogyny and sexual offences against vulnerable women who are dismissed as prostitutes.

In Leeds you can legally buy a woman for sex in the morning, get your self ID changed on line and ‘be a woman’ entering women’s private spaces in the afternoon.

The attention given to non crimes just seems even more egregious when you read this doesn’t it

Yes, it does.

She's not the only victim of street grooming to have been arrested for facilitating either. At least one has even been prosecuted.

bigbadbadger your post brought a lump to my throat a fucking lifestyle choice jesus wept that poor girl what chance has she got. And poor Cassie it is horrific.

The police are still doing this across Rochdale, Calderdale and Kirklees. West Yorkshire police told me only 3 weeks ago that a 14 year old drinking with 5 men and then getting in the back of a van with the, was her ‘lifestyle choice’. She is in a group home. The men know they can do as they please.

This makes me so fucking furious there aren't enough swear words to communicate it.

West Yorkshire police told me only 3 weeks ago that a 14 year old drinking with 5 men and then getting in the back of a van with the, was her ‘lifestyle choice’. She is in a group home

That was a child, being abused. No child can consent to sex. No child should be drinking. It's not a lifestyle choice they can make.

My Mum was a social worker, and she said to me a couple of times 'abused children are often hard to like at first, you have to ignore that and do your job'.

I'll bet these children are a fucking nightmare to deal with. I'll bet they're angry and abusive because of what they've been through, suffering from stockholm syndrome, so partially siding with their abusers.

I'll bet it's much easier to go and hassle a home counties SAHM about being mean on twitter than protect a child from being raped, when they probably won't even thank you for it.

lazy, lazy dereliction of duty on the part of the police

I'll bet it's much easier to go and hassle a home counties SAHM about being mean on twitter than protect a child from being raped, when they probably won't even thank you for it.

This.

god I feel like emptying my savings account and putting the whole fucking lot into Harry's campaign (I'm not going to do that).

How can we get the police to show some responsibility? how can we hold them to account for their institutionalised misogyny?

Yes Bernard exactly

It reminds me a bit off the woman who was murdered by the ex boyfriend and the police actually fined her 80 quid for I think it was wasting police time

What is wrong with the police. Surely they know what is happening
Or is some girls life’s not important and they deserve it

The police care more about protecting the male perpetrators reputations than vulnerable young girls 😕

How horrific this is. There are no words for my anger right now. West Yorkshire police are shameful.

I’ve bunged some more cash Harry’s way and am feeling slightly calmer

But that only addresses the police putting their efforts into the wrong things

It doesn’t get their efforts into the right, difficult things

Plus the people running the group homes, the local councillors (who I believe are in loco parentis for looked after children), the social workers. Where are these people? What safeguarding procedures are in place?

Would this have been prevented if they’d followed established processes, or are the processes broken?

Bernard - Lisa M on this:

idgeofreason.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/shocking-gang-rape-liverpool-bradford-wherever-read-our-coverage-for-details/

Oh, and:

idgeofreason.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/statement-from-my-first-manager-and-practice-teacher-about-grooming-was-manager-at-keighley-office-bradford-metropolitan-district-council-where-i-was-also-employed/

LangCleg

From the LM article
"As happened in Keighley, when Ann Cryer MP, decided to flush the work being done down the toilet and christen this a race issue."

Thank god for people like Ann Cryer and Sarah Champion, who realised that this was and is still, very much a race issue and a very specific one at that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

Why is it always Labour strongholds?

Race was a confounding factor in Rotherham, but men sexually preying on female children is not, and never has been a race issue

Let’s at least be honest with ourselves about that

Exactly Bernard - as one of the links to Lisa M's pages points out, the racial makeup of the gang perpetrating the rapes is purely a contingent fact of who happens to have won the gang turf war in that area. In my rural, Conservative voting part of the country, friends in social services tell me we have a massive problem with sex trafficking and organised rape of teens. But perpetrated by white gangs simply because it happens to be a very white bit of the country.

It's a man problem, not a race problem.

It's a man problem, not a race problem

Very definitely true, it’s not specific to race whatsoever. However, sometimes it factors into it if people are too afraid to speak out for fear of the racism label. It happens with a lot of issues around violence and sexual violence. In NZ where I’m from, we have had a similar problem with child abuse being covered up in Māori communities, I’m Māori myself and in that case it was more about being afraid to be honest about the problem because Māori endure so much racism we didn’t want to tell anyone we had a problem for fear of increased racist stereotypes. Now we have a situation with nobody wanting to be honest about other Pacific Islanders who relocate to NZ and the high incidence of violence. I even read an article the other day in NZ about our serious DV issue which claimed violence against women wasn’t a Māori thing and was ‘introduced’ by colonialism. That ignores the fact that Māori men sold their women, by force, to British and Irish soldiers as sex slaves in exchange for muskets. Violence is as much a part of Polynesian history as any other race. For me as a mixed race person, I find it far more racist to hold people of colour to different standards, as if we aren’t capable of being decent human beings.

Race was a confounding factor in Rotherham, but men sexually preying on female children is not, and never has been a race issue

Yes. Like grooming of vulnerable, usually working class, girls hasn't been going on since forever. My social worker aunt was dealing with it in the 1970s and none of the perps were Asian.

The truth is that nobody gives a shit about girls. Unless there's something else in it for them. So when the grooming is organised by an "othered" group. you can make a fuss about it all of a sudden. And pretend no other penis owners from all the other groups have been implicated for donkeys years.

a contingent fact of who happens to have won the gang turf war in that area

Also on employment patterns. In the Asian on street grooming cases: fast food shops (recruitment) and cabs (transport, communication).

Good point Jessica - race becomes salient if due to other political decisions (in this case a left wing tendency to excuse perps on the grounds that they come from a group which genuinely is on the receiving end of prejudice themselves) give that group a teflon coating.

There are lots of forms this teflon coating can take - celebs doing good work for charity, priests doing "God's work", sports coaches so dedicated to helping a new generation of sports stars. .. Lots of teflon, lots of victim blaming, precious little attention to the real issues.

when she was seen at the age of 13 getting into an abuser’s car with another girl she was arrested on suspicion of facilitating a child sex offence

How on earth was this not flagged? Thirteen for goodness sake. Why aren't they doing something about training the police properly to investigate rape and abuse instead of letting them rely on the same old woman and girl hating stereotypes?