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Original poster

Grooming gangs still at large

66 replies

SadlyMissTaken · 13/12/2020 14:18

news.sky.com/story/grooming-gangs-continuing-to-abuse-children-in-northern-england-victims-and-campaigners-warn-12158336

  • Grooming gangs are still operating
  • Police criminalising and failing victims
  • A girl complained to a teacher about her abuse and was investigated for harassing the teacher
  • As an adult she continued to complain and her own children were placed on the child protection register by social services
  • "Sky News interviewed a mother who believed her child was being groomed by a member of the same gang. She described how he allegedly gave her 14-year-old daughter alcohol and drugs and would take her on car journeys with other men. The mother, who we will call Jane, went to the police after her daughter admitted the man had asked her for naked photographs and sent her naked pictures of himself. Jane says the police did not ask to look at her daughter's phone nor did they seize the man's phone.
She added: "I made three statements in the police station and they all got lost, none of the logs got linked together, they were all allocated to different police officers."

This is so depressing, after all this time. West Yorkshire Police again.

OP posts:
SunniCameHomeWithAVengeance · 13/12/2020 20:00

Women and girls on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder have never mattered to the police. It's easy to arrest them than actually go after the problem. A nice plaster over a gaping wound. I grew up in Ireland. Lots of places had a market day. Certain people would have clothes stalls and it was known in my school which stalls to stay away from because the people running them were not safe. There wasn't any more elaboration. I don't think this is an exclusively English problem and sadly predict is a huge far reaching problem.

endofthelinefinally · 13/12/2020 20:10

A Police officer has been arrested in Halifax. It remains to be seen if anything will come of it. The link was on the deleted thread.

ArabellaScott · 13/12/2020 20:12

This makes me feel so ill.

GCAcademic · 13/12/2020 20:55

The police officer in Halifax has been charged, not just arrested, and has appeared in court but the trial has been delayed. But, yes, it does remain to be seen what will come of that.

TheQueef · 14/12/2020 13:28

Lord Ahmed deserves a mention.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-47969220

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-52282486

The rot runs deep.

Siameasy · 14/12/2020 13:51

Who is being protected here?🤔

Kaliorphic · 14/12/2020 13:58

The rot runs deep

Yes

DaisiesandButtercups · 14/12/2020 14:12

About 15-20 years ago, a social worker friend told me that girls in care in the city where she worked were being sexually exploited. She told me that she had all the details of the pimps, but nothing could be done because the “customers” were in high places in local politics, policing and the justice system...

A different part of the country and a long time ago. It just came to my mind, reading this thread.

highame · 14/12/2020 14:26

Women and girls on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder This is a better description.

Please stop using the term 'working class' to describe anyone who is vulnerable or abused, or part of a neglected underclass. The working class is not an underclass. Using the term as a catch all is just plain bloody lazy. Angry working class woman spitting feathers

Flaxmeadow · 14/12/2020 14:29

The gangs often come from large extended family networks, with relatives working in the local council, local politics, local services and the police.

Flaxmeadow · 14/12/2020 15:02

Women and girls on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder This is a better description.

Please stop using the term 'working class' to describe anyone who is vulnerable or abused, or part of a neglected underclass. The working class is not an underclass. Using the term as a catch all is just plain bloody lazy. Angry working class woman spitting feathers

Wow so even their northern working class post industrial heritage is being denied now.

Do we in the north of England have anything left we can call ourselves as a whole? Do we have to start splitting our class into sections now? Othering sections of our class?

These girls are mostly working class because they come from a working class region. West and South Yorkshire/Greater Manchester/Lancashire. The urban north.

I might add that not all the victims are working class or "underclass". Some are middle class. Any girl in these regions are potential victims to these predators

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 14/12/2020 15:03

Looks as though the man Ahmed was fifteen when those offences were committed. What's been going on since?

Seems to me likely that his brother, nine years older, might have been the instigator and of course he is conveniently unfit to plead Alzheimer's, or something? Will it get better once the charges are dropped?

TheQueef · 14/12/2020 15:09

It's stressful.

It made this poor lamb too poorly for court as well.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/crime/guilty-mad-ash-bash-and-bono-gun-toting-grooming-family-who-owned-rotherham-1803317

Flaxmeadow · 14/12/2020 15:14

...Any girl in these regions are potential victims to these predators

Well preferably any girl as long as she's a white girl. To be a victim of their racially aggravated crimes

Kaliorphic · 14/12/2020 15:20

Well preferably any girl as long as she's a white girl. To be a victim of their racially aggravated crimes

Yes. Let's not move away from who these girls are.

Flaxmeadow · 14/12/2020 15:43

Yes. Let's not move away from who these girls are.

And who targets them. In the BBC drama Three Girls, there is one scene when the girls are taken to Bradford, to be used as prostitutes at a house there. The men at the house were not gang members, they might be people who on the outside are local business owners or public sector workers. Some of the men shown in the drama did not speak English, suggesting a link with migration, both legal and illegal. These issues raised by the drama I think get forgotten. As if the only ones abusing the girls are the gangs themselves

I believe this was an attempt to show that it isn't just the gangs who are raping the girls, it's also other men from the wider community and also recent migrants

There gangs are often involved in other organised crimes. Not least a highly lucrative heroin and people trafficking trade. Money laundering by local businesses that might otherwise be seen as respectable, corruption in local govenrment and services.

This is organised crime on huge scale. The gangs are often part of wider networks of crime and corruption

GCAcademic · 14/12/2020 16:16

It's not just white girls. These gangs have also been abusing girls from the Sikh community:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/sikh-girls-abused-grooming-gangs-15492360.amp

Gurufloof · 14/12/2020 16:32

This was happening in West Yorkshire in the 90s. I reported a house where young girls were being taken and it was not raided. It would take hours for the police to follow up on girls disappearances, even when car numbers were given etc

This was happening in west Yorkshire in the 70s. I know I was a victim. No one actually gave a stuff back then either. Then as generations grow and we keep our kids indoors more and helicopter parent more we are vilified for keeping our kids safe, and inside where we can see them and driving them to school etc. And governments and councils tell us we haven't to do that for (insert reason) and cse is rare and never happens and our children will be safe outside with no parents. But we know why we dont let them out of our sight, especially the girls.

NiceGerbil · 14/12/2020 16:34

The police etc use the idea that they 'can't' do anything because they'll be accused of racism is an excuse and always has been.

It's because they don't give a toss about girls. They don't view them as victims (this has come out over and over in enquiries reports etc) and they just don't see this as crime or anything.

CherieMarch · 14/12/2020 16:34

I think police being reluctant to confront sex grooming gangs out of fear of causing offence is obviously a huge mistake.

History has taught us that men from all walks of life, faith, socioeconomic status and ethnicities participate in rape and grooming. Look at R Kelly, Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein etc.

We know this.

However in England it's true that one of our largest minority groups are Asians. It does seem to be that in some cases Asian communities in England seem to remain rather insular in a way that is outstanding. From arranged marriages, teen marriages, strict adherence to religion, fgm, "honor killings" etc. It isn't racist to acknowledge that but it is racist and obviously incorrect to call all asians sexual predators.

If you come from a culture where sex before marriage renders you a used up slag (often a belief tied to religion as with evangelical Christians) then you'll view a lot of British girls who don't adhere to that belief system because we've somewhat although not totally outgrown it as used up slags. It's harmful. It hurts to think of little northern white girls being groomed by Asian men just like it hurts to think of little Asian kids being racially abused by white people for things out of their control.

Deeyah Khan is a wonderful Norwegian British Punjabi film maker who often discusses ending sexism and racism in a way that is hopeful and insightful.

Also the article linked by pp about Sikh girls being targeted is unsurprising and depressing.

Flaxmeadow · 14/12/2020 17:24

The police etc use the idea that they 'can't' do anything because they'll be accused of racism is an excuse and always has been.

Police in Greater Manchester were told to "go find other ethnicities" to investigate by their senior officers. Presumably an attempt to balance the books
In Rotherham whistle blowers concerns were ignored and they were sent on diversity training course.
Keighley MP Ann Cryer has repeatedly said in interviews that she was called racist by her own colleagues when she tried to raise concerns

SunniCameHomeWithAVengeance · 14/12/2020 17:52

I didn't mean to take away from the British class system, in Ireland we don't have a class system.

Angryresister · 14/12/2020 17:56

gurufloof horrified that this was going on as early as that, and angry for what happened to you. So of course you will keep your kids safe.

TheSockMonster · 14/12/2020 18:09

@highame

Women and girls on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder This is a better description.

Please stop using the term 'working class' to describe anyone who is vulnerable or abused, or part of a neglected underclass. The working class is not an underclass. Using the term as a catch all is just plain bloody lazy. Angry working class woman spitting feathers

I am guilty of doing that. Ironically, I also come from a working class background.

On the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder is much better and I’ll use it in future.

Gurufloof · 14/12/2020 18:27

gurufloofhorrified that this was going on as early as that, and angry for what happened to you. So of course you will keep your kids safe

Pretty sure it was going on before the 70s too. Going by the conversations I overheard, and by innate knowledge and understanding of the men involved.

As we all here know by now, women and girls do not matter.