Rochdale grooming: How another gang went under the radar

One of the victims faced an eight-year wait for justice (photograph used for illustration only)

Rochdale is "synonymous" with grooming - that was what one of the defence lawyers told a jury that has just convicted five people of committing 22 sexual offences against two girls as young as 12.

They were worried the Greater Manchester town had become so linked with the serial sexual exploitation of young girls that they felt they had to warn jurors to "rid yourselves of preconceptions".

That warning came more than a decade after the conviction of the notorious Rochdale grooming ring in 2012 - a story the whole country became acquainted with five years later in the BBC series Three Girls.

It showed how the gang, comprising men of mostly Pakistani and Afghan heritage, plied girls as young as 13 with alcohol and drugs and passed them around for sex.

This latest trial has revealed there was another grooming gang operating in Rochdale, also made up of mostly south Asian men.

The conviction of five men has come 20 years after the gang committed their sickening crimes and eight years after one of the victims was interviewed by police about her full ordeal.

For legal reasons the victims, now women in their 30s, are known as Girl A and Girl B.

Warning: This article contains details some readers may find upsetting

Whistleblower Maggie Oliver quit Greater Manchester Police after saying abuse victims were being let down

The prosecutions came "better late than never", according to Maggie Oliver, one of the women who blew the whistle on grooming in the Greater Manchester town.

The former detective resigned from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) after she tried to get the force to take evidence of grooming gangs in Rochdale more seriously.

She said that, at the time, "hundreds of victims" were turned away by the force while the perpetrators were "allowed to continue and abuse other children".

Two of those victims, we now know, were the girls whose evidence was heard in this latest trial.

Disturbingly, Girl A said that, for many years, she did not even realise she had been a victim, telling the court: "I thought these men were my friends."

It was only in 2014, when she read a book which told the story of one of the women featured in Three Girls, that she realised the truth.

She turned to her sister and told her: "This happened to me."

Beaten and raped

The following year, as a young mother, she went to a parenting course in Rochdale where she prepared a written presentation that shocked the course leaders so much that they called the police.

In her presentation, she wrote: "I was abused daily for six years.

"I was 12 when they began to abuse me, feeding me alcohol and drugs, abuse me and pass me on to their friends.

"I had no choice but to do what they say or I would be beaten and raped.

"They did as they pleased, they made videos of me to use as blackmail.

"If I told anyone they would share the videos. They sent the video around Rochdale anyway and I was branded a slag for it."

The trial was held over three months at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court

Later that year, she agreed to be interviewed by police.

She told them how her life between 2002 and 2006 had been dominated by the sickening abuse, which took place mostly in a flat above a shop on the edge of Rochdale.

It also happened in parks and beauty spots, a field next to a primary school and on some of the moors above the town.

She described to the jury how her ordeal began.

She said she had been walking along Drake Street in the town centre when a Honda Civic pulled up and the man inside sweet-talked her into swapping numbers.

They met for sex and she thought this older man had feelings for her until he started asking her, and then telling her, to have sex with his friends.

BBC Action Line

This is a distressing case so if you, or someone you know, need help after reading about it, the details of organisations offering assistance can be found on the BBC Action Line website.

She told the trial: "He used me like a piece of meat. I thought I was in a relationship before he passed me on to his friends."

In police interviews she spoke of "being on demand" for her abusers every day, sometimes having multiple men on hold when they rang her at the same time.

She knew what would happen if she refused their sexual demands.

On one occasion she described being told to stay in a bedroom "like a prisoner" for hours while the group "took it in turns" to force her into sexual acts.

She said she worried she would "get a black eye" if she refused.

The court was also told she was urinated on by a group of men for refusing to perform oral sex on someone she had been "offered out" to.

Her humiliation was also compounded by being filmed.

She described how she was shown a video of what some of her abusers had done to her when she had blacked out following a "drinking contest" in which, as a 14-year-old, she had had to drink as much neat vodka as possible.

'Threatened'

The court was told the video showed her being sexually assaulted with a brandy bottle, while the group could be heard "laughing".

The bottle, the court was told, had been kept in the bathroom of the flat where it happened "like some sort of trophy". The video was then "widely circulated" around Rochdale.

To further secure her compliance, they even threatened to send the footage to her mother.

The defendants claimed they thought the girls were over 16 or 18 because they wore make-up or smoked cannabis.

The women pointed out that they were often wearing their school uniforms when the abuse occurred, often having been picked up by a gang member from their school.

The trial also heard how Girl A had already suffered sexual abuse as a child. Two men had already been convicted in a separate trial of raping her.

This was used by one of the defence teams to imply that the trauma of that initial abuse had caused her to misremember what had happened in this case.

This was flatly denied by Girl A.

Jurors in this latest trial also heard Girl A say she had been the victim not only of the eight in the dock, but of a total of 50 men.

She had told friends "what happened was so much worse than Three Girls, trust me".

This claim was used by one of the defence teams to imply tat she was out to maximise a compensation claim - something that was also denied by Girl A.

BBC drama Three Girls was based on the first Rochdale abuse scandal

The wheels of justice moved very slowly for Girl A, with eight years passing between her first going to police and the trial getting under way.

She told the trial there had been times when "I'd had enough and didn't want to carry on".

"If I'd known it would have been eight years I wouldn't even have started," she said. "I wouldn't have bothered because all this has messed with my mental health."

But "there's no point in starting something and stopping", she went on.

Ms Oliver said the eight-year gap was "barbaric" and "inhumane".

"This young woman has had her life on hold for eight years," she said.

'Sickening crimes'

Another similarity with previous grooming cases was inaction by the authorities who were meant to keep vulnerable children safe.

Girl A said GMP and Rochdale Borough Council's social services had turned her away "like I was a naughty child".

GMP declined to comment on that specific point, but following Thursday's convictions Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Jackson praised the victims who "demonstrated such bravery in testifying against these offenders on their journey to justice".

Rochdale Borough Council has been invited to comment but has not yet responded.

On Thursday, director of children's services Sharon Hubber said: "These were sickening crimes committed against two vulnerable young girls, whose strength and determination was instrumental in bringing this case forward."

As for Girl A's life now, the trauma and stigma she suffered since the age of 12 shows no sign of letting up.

"I can't even really go into Rochdale anymore," she told the trial. "It's like my life's been ruined.

"To this day people still talk about what happens in my childhood but they still don't see the grooming side of it."

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