Girl A The Truth About the Roc

Contents

What do they find attractive about me? An underage girl who just lies there sobbing, looking up at them... as they come to me one by one.

This is the shocking true story of how a young girl from Rochdale came to be Girl A the key witness in the trial of Britains most notorious child sex ring.

Girl A was just fourteen when she was groomed by a group of Asian men. After being lured into their circle with gifts, she was piled with alcohol and systematically abused. She was just one of up to fifty girls to be passed around by the gang. The girls were all under sixteen and forced to have sex with as many as twenty men in one night.

When details emerged a nation was outraged and asked how these sickening events came to pass. And now the girl at the very centre of the storm reveals the heartbreaking truth.

Since fighting for justice as a victim of the Rochdale child trafficking ring, Girl A has been focusing on building a happy and normal life for herself in the north of England.

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First published in 2013 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
A Random House Group company

Copyright Girl A and Nigel Bunyan 2013

Girl A and Nigel Bunyan have asserted their rights to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780091951344

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I dedicate this book to any other survivors of abuse.
Together we can make a difference.

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of the author. The names of people, places, dates, sequences or the details of events may have been changed to try to protect the privacy of others.

I would like to thank my mum and dad and all of my family and friends for their love and support. Thanks to the support services that gave me their time and guided me through this experience. And, a special thank you to Nigel Bunyan for his hard work and passion while helping me to tell my story.

It was the image of the clock on the wall that I tried to hold on to that day and, after all this time, its a memory I still cling to.

It was a childs clock, the sort that a thousand girls might find as they unwrap presents on their birthday or on Christmas Day. The face itself was pink, but it had white letters, and in the middle was an angel with beautiful, outstretched wings and a smile so radiant you could imagine it healing even the most broken of hearts. The second hand was white, too: I could hear every tick, every imagined heartbeat as it arced its way around the angel.

In this room, of all rooms, it seemed out of place. Set high on the wall, it looked down on a single mattress which that day, and probably for many days before, was covered with a grubby blue sheet. The mattress, edged with dust, rested on bare floorboards littered with bubble wrap and a scattering of empty, abandoned cardboard boxes.

There was a central light flex and an over-bright, old-style bulb. But no one had bothered to cover it with a shade. The single windowpane bore a jagged diagonal crack, with no curtains to cover it. Instead, the afternoon light streamed in.

Id seen the clock briefly as I came in, a blur on the wall, but now I kept trying to focus on it. My head tilted in desperation towards the wall, trying with all my might to take in the sight of the beautiful angel, hoping she might reach down and somehow carry me away to safety.

But there would be no rescue that summers day, nor for many, many more. Instead, tears streaked my face and my lungs were filled involuntarily by the smell of cheap soap as the unbearable weight of him bore down on me. I tried to scream, but his hand was pressed over my mouth, stifling the sound.

All I could do was turn towards the angel and watch the second hand, barely distinguishable, making its way, tick, tick, tick, past her fading smile.

* * *

My own smile was torn from me that day, discarded along with my innocence on that grubby mattress. I was only a child and had just been raped by the leader of a paedophile gang who preyed on vulnerable, fragile girls like me. Uniquely in Britain, they were all Asian, and almost to a man Pakistani, and their victims were found to be exclusively white girls.

The race of their victims would become a national debate but to me it was irrelevant. These men were nothing more than paedophiles and what they did, whether it was to a white girl, an Asian girl, or to a girl of any other race, was at heart just wrong, whatever the circumstances around it.

For seven months these men trafficked me moved me around from place to place, from sick pervert to sick pervert across the north of England, not caring about the pain and the suffering I felt, intent on selling me to other men who found a sick pleasure in defiling children in seedy flats and houses.

By the time it was all over, I felt dead inside. But for some it was only the beginning of the story, and it was all anybody wanted to talk about. My parents, Social Services, the newspapers, the courts, Newsnight

All I wanted to do was hide away from the world, but I still had a role to play. I had to be Girl A the key witness in the trial that finally saw my abusers locked up. Girl A the girl in the newspaper stories who had been through the most hideous experience imaginable. When I read those stories, I felt like I was reading about somebody else, another girl who was subjected to the depths of human depravity. But it wasnt. It was about me. I am Girl A.

I cant tell you my real name: I dont want anybody to know who I really am. Slowly, Im beginning to realise that what happened to me wasnt my fault, that I was taken advantage of by a group of vile, twisted men. And, on top of that, I am becoming aware that I was let down by some of the very people who should have been there to help me: the people who either didnt realise or didnt care that I desperately needed to be rescued, or else turned a blind eye to it because to have acknowledged what was going on was, to them, unthinkable.

Because how could they admit, even to themselves, that teenage girls on their own doorstep were being preyed on in such a way? Trafficking was something that happened in other countries far, far away, wasnt it? And, anyway, if a few girls liked me slipped through societys safety net, did it really matter?