'I was groomed and exploited at parties aged 14'

Claire (not her real name) was taken to parties around the country at the age of 14

Thousands of children are reported missing each year and England's Children's Commissioner has warned of a steep rise in pupils persistently absent from school. Missing children are at risk of sexual and criminal exploitation. Here, one teenager recalls how she was exploited at parties around the country - and how a charity helped her to break free.

When Claire* was 14 and started going to parties with her friends and their boyfriends, she thought she was having fun.

They provided relief from stresses such as school, but now aged 18, she's learned a harder truth.

"Well, in the official terms," she pauses, "I was groomed and exploited".

For about two years Claire regularly went missing from home, sometimes for days at a time. The longest stretch away was for nine days.

She was driven to what, she says, were "normal parties" with music and dancing.

"But then a lot of the time you end up sleeping with a lot of the older guys," she says. "Sometimes, they'd give you weed or other... stuff like that."

It started when Claire's friend introduced her to an older boyfriend, who was about 18.

Claire would find out about the parties via calls, texts or bumping into people and would then get picked up and driven there.

"Sometimes we'd go to London, sometimes Northampton or Coventry or wherever we knew there would be a nice big party," she says.

"You might be at a party one day a week and then in a year's time, you're not home all week."

The men at the parties appeared to be over 18, some into their 20s or 30s.

At the beginning she'd have sex with one man a night, then more.

"At first, it was only one. But then, obviously, as time went on and as you know more people, often it would end up being more than one person in a night."

Claire has been receiving help from a charity

She may not have known it at the time, but Claire was, according to the charity Missing People, among the estimated one in seven children sexually exploited when they go missing.

Claire says she didn't feel as though there was an expectation to have sex with other partygoers at first, but things changed.

"Once you end up doing it a couple of times it begins to feel like... an obligation, because they have driven you out here, they've spent effort taking you to these places," she says.

"You just think 'Oh, this is kind of how it's supposed to work - they've done something for me, I should do something for them,' and obviously you look back and realise you don't owe them anything."

Going missing affected her relationship with her family and her mum especially, as well as her school work.

She would ignore her parents' attempts to contact her, thinking "they were trying to stop me having fun".

Charity Link to Change has been supporting Claire at its Bedford site

Claire was eventually assigned a social worker, who referred her to the Bedford-based charity Link to Change, which works with sexually and criminally exploited children.

She is now sitting in the charity's games room, near a pool table and air hockey machine, speaking calmly about her "regret" at what happened and her "hate" for the men involved.

"They rope you into this kind of scheme," she says.

"But it's happened. And I don't want other people to go through the same thing.

"When you start to understand everything that's happened and you realise what it is - grooming - you feel angry because you're angry at the people who've done it to you and you're angry at the people who knew and didn't do anything.

"You feel angry at all of these people who… took advantage of you."

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Data shows the number of children reported missing to police fell in 2020-21 during the lockdowns.

But England's Children's Commissioner recently raised concerns over how many children are persistently absent from school, missing 10% or more of their lessons.

England's school census shows in autumn 2021, 1.7m pupils were persistently absent - more than 23% - and up from 920,000 or 13% in 2019.

Link to Change CEO Hayley Brown said it was "soul destroying" that so many young people were at risk of being exploited

Link to Change's CEO Hayley Brown believes the pandemic and lockdowns are behind a large rise in the number of young people referred to the charity, which offers one-to-one support, group sessions and information workshops.

"The need is absolutely crazy," she says.

In 2020 they saw six referrals a month, now it's 17, while the number of youngsters receiving monthly one-to-one support is up from 41 in 2020 to 60 now and about a dozen people are on their waiting list.

Ms Brown says those figures may "not seem like a lot", but "given the... long-term work we do with our young people and... and how much they're at risk, that's quite a large number".

"So many of them struggle with everyday life problems, never mind the fact they were in the process of being groomed or exploited," she says.

She fears the daily issues the charity sees are "incredibly hidden" and confesses it's "soul destroying" knowing "there are so many young people at risk".

"They are in danger and we don't have the capacity to be able to support them effectively."

It's thought the drugs trade, including county lines operations and organised crime gangs, drive sexual and criminal exploitation of children.

Det Insp Katherine Rivers said people were getting better at spotting the signs of children being exploited

On the day we speak to Bedfordshire Police, Det Insp Katherine Rivers, she says seven young people aged 13 to 17 are missing.

She runs the force's missing people and child exploitation disruption team and believes the police and others are recognising the signs of exploitation better.

"I think the trouble is children don't realise it's happening until it's happened because they are being groomed effectively with these goods - the new shoes, the money and the exciting lifestyle," she says.

Tackling exploitation, she adds, is one of the force's main priorities, and "children will always be at the top of that list".

Claire says without help she might still be going to the parties and hopes by sharing her story, others will see the risks.

"When you start, you feel like you can't say no to it any more," she says.

"You just have to understand that you are able to step away."

*Claire is not the victim's real name

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, information and support can be found via BBC Action Line.