Charlotte Tetley, victim of the Rochdale rape gangs has died

[defrazzled]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15114961/Rochdale-grooming-gang-victim-sexual-abuse-killed-inquest.html

Another victim has taken her own life. Why did she have to move and leave her support network? Why was her life and community less valuable than a child rapists? How can anyone make sense of this insanity, why has an inquest only started now?

Shame on the police, courts, social housing and all who failed her. Rest in peace Charlotte.

Labour persecuted two Labour women,Ann Cryer and Sarah Champion for speaking up about it.

Poor Charlotte was treated the same way that all child survivors of sexual abuse are treated regardless of the class or race of their abusers. Vulnerable children have been abused and seen as culpable for decades. They are easy pickings for predators. Why? Because those who should protect them are complicit or turn a blind eye or blame the victim for running away from the care home, being badly behaved, drinking, taking drugs, being a ‘child’ prostitute.

When these children become adults they are deeply traumatised and struggle to cope but receive no support despite crying out for help.

The assault on the self and self worth of a child victim/survivor does not vary with the class or religion or skin colour of the perpetrator.

Focusing on the perpetrators (which was not revealed until the inquest) distracts from the multiple ways Charlotte was failed by the system that should have helped her.

Ive been speaking up about this a lot in my real life, precisely because I am a brown woman, so good luck accusing me of racism. The continuing victimisation of the grooming gangs' victims is all linked to sexism and classism - working class young women have fuck all value. Children who have been abused have fuck all value in real life - everyone wrung their hands about Baby P, but if he'd survived, and grown up to be a difficult troubled teenager acting out his trauma, everyone would have washed their hands of him.

I don't actually know the answers here. I just know we have to talk about these things, and ensure there is real concrete support for the survivors so they're not retraumatisrd over and over.

One way forward would be to avoid "sacred castes". So Catholic priests can't be above reproach just because they are priests, South Asian men can't be above reproach because of fears of racism, etc, men that aren't south Asian can't be above reproach because "the real perpetrators of these crimes are Muslims/Asians". I think also a permanent rethinking of how we categorise looked after children, children who are struggling. It's no good people just holding up banners of innocent looking children saying "protect our kids" if at the same time you have people calling children in care "downright evil" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v79jle6qpo or "feral" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/06/feral-children-feckless-parents-leaving-rest-of-us-in-fear/

(And if course actually children/teenagers behaving antisocially is scary and makes people's lives harder. But there needs to be space to acknowledge that and also look into what's causing it/whether the children themselves are safe). Otherwise you just veer from one tabloid extreme about "streetwise kids" and soppy do-gooders wanting to hug a hoody to the other (why did noone help these working class children we spent a decade calling scum)

And also actually I think there should be serious outside investigations of police forces with a serial record of letting women and girls down. The same treatment you would use to root out endemic corruption.

Bumping this up as another article today. Charlotte was found by the British transport police on tracks, taken to A&E, but left before she was assessed. The police refused to search for her. I don't know what to say.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15123097/Rochdale-grooming-gang-victim-suffered-significant-sexual-abuse-took-life-removed-hospital-coroner-rules.html

Some excellent analysis on this thread, thanks all.

I am furious at the way the grooming gangs’ victims are being exploited AGAIN for political expediency. Seeing the kind of people who you know would also have written them off for being “slags” suddenly finding an interest in VAWG and sexual exploitation purely because they are enjoying airing their racism has been infuriating.

Anyone who follows VAWG is aware that women struggle to be believed even when they are “perfect” victims, let alone when they’re underage girls in care seen to be running away to drink, smoke, and be with “boyfriends.” The race of the perps was the sixth best reason not to do anything, to borrow a phrase from the Sandie Peggie tribunal.

This makes it so much worse. Her poor mother and daughter, she had so much to live for.

I don't know how many times the state let her down. So many times.

It's worth me explaining that EUPD is a controversial diagnosis from a feminist perspective. It's often given to women with a history of complex childhood trauma - their difficulties being explained by this better.

It's treatable but she was turned down for in patient care which she obviously needed. And was aware she was losing control of suicidality and trying to get help.

10 years ago people posted about the Rape Gangs and were accused of racism.
Those who sacrificed thousands of girls on the altar of ‘diversity’ have blood on their hands.

Nobody is ‘exploiting’ these girls.

Just because you may have some personal vendetta against various figures who have brought this issue to the public domain, does not mean they are not right to do so.

Posts such as yours are why we are in this mess.

I beg to differ - there very much are people ‘exploiting’ these girls. And it was ever thus.

You’ve been running around scolding and tone policing quite a bit today. Why don’t you take the time to set out your position in a calm and reasonable way instead of loudly declaring women here beyond the pale and flouncing off?

We’re pretty used to those tactics here. They don’t impress us.

I don't even understand what point you are making. Are you complaining that the Daily Mail is reporting on Charlotte's inquest because you consider that "exploiting" her death?

The girls and women exploited by pimps, of whatever race, have always then been exploited by the chattering classes of the day. The girls from the northern towns were exploited by the men of south Asian origin, the group before them were exploited by the afro Caribbean men and alongside it all, they were also exploited by white men, some of whom were police officers.

Oh I see. You are ironically using the awful political conflation of the word "exploitation" to refer to both continued sexual abuse and the turning of a blind eye by authorities to avoid ethnic tensions...

...to some right wing journalists like the Daily Mail, GB news, Elon Musk allegedly posting these cases and failings as "exploitation" as apparently they are just racist bigots.

A politician covering up sexual abuse for political gain is in no way comparable to one reporting it for the same.

Personally I'm on the left, an ethnic minority and have been following these issues for 20 years. It was despicable that prior to Elon Musk tweeting about it only GB news was reporting on it.

I'm glad he brought it to public attention.

Poor girl. What an awful story of so much avoidable harm caused to her. She should have been protected and cared for.

The link being they were all men.

Yes. The victims are often “slags” to the police, until someone higher up the tree forces them to investigate. There is story after story after story of sexually abused and violently controlled women being ignored while their abusers have got away unscathed. When the women go to the courts, their characters are assassinated and they are accused of again being slags. The process is hell.

It is disgusting that the welfare of the women always comes somewhere behind how useful or not they are to politics.

@RayonSunrise How useful they are and also how "pure" and "good" they are. The phrase "child prostitute" which both the BBC and Guardian have used in the last 2 years show just how clear this is. No child can be a prostitute. A child is the victim. A man rapes a child. A child prostituting themself changes the narrative. They were poor, vulnerable children. They were raped, then smeared and mentally destroyed to make that rape and the lack of punishment 'acceptable' for the police to ignore.

Poor Charlotte 😓 rest in peace, you were failed by so many.

Charlotte was failed again and again. By society and by statutory organisations who should have protected her and looked after her. She wasn’t given an impatient mental health bed, despite her desperate need.

By chance, I was reviewing prevention of future deaths reports today at work, and came across the Coroner’s Matters of concern for Charlotte case, which were published a few days ago and which form the basis for the DM story.

I won’t post the details, which are devastating, but the report is publicly available via the prevention of future deaths website if anyone is interested in reading it. Please do be aware though that the information may be distressing.

People like Charlotte deserve to be valued & respected. I hope she rests in peace.

The Reform narrative is basically about the failure of services across the board and how ordinary people can't access vital services.

You don't even have to add the racial element for this to be an issue. The disaffection is the lack of access to services and making people jump through impossible hoops to get those services.

Reform have then blamed it on immigration as their proposed solution - it's not the solution but they have acknowledged the problem - which is more than every other party is doing.

It's not just mental health either.

My son is currently stuck in an NHS Doom Loop of people going 'not my problem' which no one wants to help with.

He had a medical emergency, and because of the nature of the emergency we went to the nearest hospital. This wasn't in our local area because we were out at the time.

He was then referred to the local childrens hospital in the same out of area because they don't have a paediatric service for this in my local area. This is standard for where I live - we've come across it previously and we get offered the choice of where to go.

They have treated him, but he needs to be referred to another department as part of it. The doctor wanted him seen at the children's hospital because he could work with the team. He said we should have already been referred and he was surprised this hadn't happened when the initial medical emergency happened. He said delays to this could have a significant permanent effect. The referral was refused and we got a letter saying 'nope not our problem out of area' you will be referred here.

We still hadn't heard a peep by the next appointment at the children's so we've chased it up with pals. Turns out the passed on referral has gone to the wrong place and they don't offer that service at that place so it's now been passed onto a third place. PALS were useless when they called back saying 'oh well it's been referred here's - yes, only because Pals had got involved in the first fucking place and we STILL haven't had the urgent referral we should have had in early July because they can't find the right department in the right area.

It's all 'oh not my department, not my problem' attitude where it's impossible.

I have other examples too.

You have to be 'the perfect patient' to get the support you need. Otherwise you are liable to end up with no service, or worse in the case of mental health services - arrested by the police and criminalised because the police have zero fucking clue and don't have adequate training for mental health. Never mind the lack of 24/7 access to mental health services which should be the case for the police.

It's a farce which the public recognise and have lived experience of.

This is where scolding about tone / attitude etc etc by political parties falls into a pit of shit because it sounds just like the fobing off that's the issue. It's why we have this concept of the lanyard class in the first place.

Until you start seeing proper engagement on this as an issue, then Reform will continue to blame immigration because they can.

The creep of this bullshit and terrible attitudes to the public only seems to be getting worse and affecting more and more things.

The abject frustration it causes creates anger and it's manifesting in various ways.

What's more surprising is it's a surprise to anyone.

That just gives rise to the idea of two tier services....

for your son @RedToothBrush . I hope he manages to get the care he needs but it shouldn't be such a struggle

I am so depressed about the NHS. My relatives working in the NHS were absolutely in despair at Langley's health reforms believing it was going to damage the NHS irrevocably. The problem is, it sounds like doom mongering "the Tories are destroying the NHS" and it takes a while for impacts to start to filter through so people can feel them. Plus actually a lot of NHS staff were holding the system together by putting well above the normal effort levels. It wasn't sustainable though and the whole system fell apart completely with COVID. There just wasn't any capacity left in the system to absorb it. And then after that you had a staff who were totally exhausted and systems that just didnt work (and huge levels of waste). So then, a good while after the dire predictions, you started to see people just not able to access the health care they needed in large numbers. It feels like it all collapsed very quickly after a protracted period of things steadily worsening
And Mental health was always the least considered part of the NHS even at the best of times. It's is sort of out of sight out of mind as it's not something people really give much thought to (Unlike A and E waiting times) unless they need it. So they just became completely overwhelmed by the large increase in people needing care (and difficulties in discharging patients because there was nowhere for them to go due to other cuts.) Making the shortage even worse.

So Labour really need to be urgently fixing a system that is on its knees. But even if they were good at that, it would take a while to actually make a real difference (they seem to be concentrating on lowering waiting times which is important but doesn't really impact people like your son's experience). Real improvement needs much more than superficial measures. And I don't even know if Wes Streeting's focus on "AI" is the right strategy. But then you also have Reform who can capitalise on people's dissatisfaction but if they do get in we will likely lose the NHS as a free at point if service health service altogether. At least in the form its in now.

None of which helps Charlotte at all. But if anyone knows of ways to pressure the government to put more focus on adequate mental healthcare please share. It has less political heft than cancer, And E etc so.easier to fall by the way side. But then people die needlessly.

Some staff are undoubtedly lazy/uncaring as well I am sure. Sorry, I re-read @RedToothBrush and it might have looked like I was talking over your experiences.