Feeling forgotten, UK child rape scandal victim urges government to act

By Catarina Demony and Marissa Davison

LONDON (Reuters) - Groomed and raped by a criminal gang as a teen, a British woman now in her 30s continues to live in fear 15 years on.

The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was one of the thousands of victims of the so-called "grooming gangs" scandal, a series of criminal cases in multiple English towns and cities where organised groups sexually exploited vulnerable young girls for decades.

In recent weeks the scandal has been on the front pages again, forcing her to relive traumatic memories but giving her hope that fresh scrutiny might pressure the government to act.

Demands from British opposition politicians for a new public inquiry have been amplified in the last week by a series of social media posts from Elon Musk, the world's richest man and owner of the platform X.

Musk also accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who came to power last July, of failing to tackle the scandal when he was the country's chief prosecutor, saying he was "complicit in the rape of Britain" and must go.

Numerous local investigations have been carried out over the years, and a broader nationwide public inquiry into child sexual abuse reported in 2022, making a number of recommendations which have not yet been implemented.

"It just kind of brought everything back up for me," the victim said, speaking in the apartment where she spends much of her time as she is too scared to venture out.

"It might not be nice to see but it's helpful (as) someone is raising awareness and... standing up for us. I feel like we've been forgotten about."

Nine men were convicted of abusing the victim.

Her lawyer, Jonathan Bridge, who also represents other victims, said most of his clients did not want a new inquiry but wanted the Labour government to implement recommendations made at other investigations, such as providing support for victims and better rules to spot such crimes in the future.

"Absolutely nothing has been done despite all the time and money that was spent on that inquiry," Bridge said.

Starmer's government says a new inquiry - called for by the opposition Conservatives, who were in office from 2010 until 2024 but say the full picture has yet to come to light - would delay action it plans to take.

Among other measures, the government said on Monday it was introducing a new law that would force professionals who work with children to report claims of sexual abuse, one of the national inquiry's main demands.

FOCUS ON VICTIMS

The victim interviewed by Reuters, who was living in a care home in a town in Greater Manchester, northwestern England, when the abuse took place, recalled how on one occasion she was drugged and locked in a house for four days: "I couldn't move... and there was man after man coming in."

She said those who groomed and raped her were from Pakistan. A 2014 report into abuse in a nearby town said the majority of known perpetrators were British Pakistani and that in some cases local officials and other agencies had been wary of identifying ethnic origins for fear of upsetting community cohesion, or being seen as racist.

Becky Riggs, UK police chief on child protection, previously said that media coverage has tended to focus on specific communities and the "grooming gangs", but group-based offending occurs in various forms, and across different ethnicities.

A 2020 Home Office report said "it was likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending".

Starmer, who headed Britain's prosecution service between 2008 and 2013, has defended his record on prosecuting child abusers.

The lawyer Bridge said "children were failed across the board", by the police and social services, and there was no legal basis to claim Starmer was responsible.

"Those who are whipping this up are not focusing on what matters: the victims themselves," Professor Alexis Jay, who led the national abuse inquiry, told broadcaster ITV on Tuesday.

The victim who spoke to Reuters says those abused want to see action that shows they have been heard.

"I just want to be able to live a normal life," she said. "I want to be happy and I'm not... that's not much to ask."

(Reporting by Catarina Demony and Marissa Davison; Editing by Kate Holton and Alex Richardson)