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Britain is facing a rape gang epidemic, with thousands of young people at risk from sexual exploitation by groups of men, a special report for the Sunday Mirror can reveal.
Last week we told how police believe they have uncovered the country’s biggest child sex ring, with as many as 100 victims.
In Rochdale last year nine men were convicted of exploiting 47 disadvantaged girls by rape, sexual abuse, grooming and trafficking.
Now a study has uncovered a national problem far greater than the authorities care to admit, with 16,500 young people at risk from sex gangs.
Investigative journalist Kris Hollington spent a year on the scandal and found vulnerable girls are let down by a care system that, in some cases, all but delivers them to sex beasts. Here are his shocking findings…
The system to protect vulnerable children from sexual exploitation is so inadequate that it CONTRIBUTES to the abuse of British children rather than prevents it.
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In some cases it puts them within reach of organised traffickers, rather than protecting them. It’s almost as if a sexual predator designed it.
The problem begins when vulnerable girls are placed in care homes. They should be a last resort for children at risk from a parent or someone close to them. But, disturbingly, many teenagers are housed in care homes because more suitable services have been shut down due to lack of funds.
Instead, billions are pumped into the country’s 1,800 care homes. Councils spend £1 billion a year on 5,000 places in children’s homes – £200,000 per place.
Of 1,800 children’s homes in England, 76 per cent are run by the private sector, sometimes charging as much as £280,000 per place per year.
But the system can place kids hundreds of miles away from their homes. One local authority placed every child in its care in homes outside its boundary.
Many teenagers then run away… only to fall foul of sex offenders. And the local councils and police aren’t even aware these children exist.
Gangs looking to exploit children for sex are so aware of the system’s failures they target children’s homes for victims.
They follow the girls and gain their trust by offering love and attention. They shower the girls with gifts – clothes, money, alcohol, drugs and phones – before exploiting them for sex.
Mika, a 13-year-old Asian girl, became a crack and heroin addict when her father disowned her. Gloria, 16, a drug addict, and 15-year-olds Nikki, Sandra and Janine were all from London but ended up in care homes in Greater Manchester.
They were depressed, bored and lonely… perfect targets for child sex gangs.
A young local crack addict called Sarah saw Nikki leaving the care home and told her she could earn money for partying. What Nikki didn’t know was that to fund Sarah’s crack habit she had supplied prostitutes for a gang.
Nikki went with Sarah to a grotty hotel, where men plied her with vodka and queued up to rape her.
Janine was lured to a derelict house and kept in a locked room. The men kept coming, a never-ending parade of fathers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles.
She arrived back at the care home with blood on her clothes. Her carers’ attitude was it was up to her if she wanted to go and get wasted.
Sandra and Gloria went with Sarah in a taxi to an empty house. There, more than a dozen men raped them, watching each other, encouraging each other, insulting the girls. Weeks later, a charity worker found Nikki unconscious in a back street and called the police.
Eventually there was an investigation. Detectives discovered many other girls, including a 15-year-old local girl Paula. She fell prey to the gang after younger members groomed her as she left school and one young man persuaded her they were in love… before raping her. Soon Paula was having sex with several Asian men at a time, at kebab shops, flats and houses and in cars and taxis.
The gang leader told her: “You do what I say and you tell no one. If you call the police or talk to anyone, I will find you then I’ll kill you. Then I’ll find your family and I’ll rape your mother, your sister and kill your father.” When Paula’s father found out and tried to rescue her, he was arrested for assault and trespass.
Only when her parents threatened to go to the Press were they taken seriously. Seven men were arrested and the case went to trial. The girls testified and were cross-examined for a gruelling 13 days before one girl broke down. The trial collapsed and the men went free.
In London Katya, 15, was befriended by a 19-year-old man who met her after school. He gave her clothes, booze, cannabis and a phone and made her feel special. Then he raped her. Men came to his flat and he made her have sex with them. Three other girls were also used as sex slaves in the flat.
Police eventually charged him with rape and assault and he was prosecuted. But they are not isolated cases.
Last November, part of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups admitted it was a nationwide problem and estimated as many as 16,500 young people were at risk from sex gangs.
Government figures of reported rapes reveal 3,980 girls under 16 were raped in England and Wales between 2004 and 2005. Between 2010 and 2011, it rose to 5,115 – a 22 per cent rise in six years.
In February, an Ofsted report revealed many local councils didn’t know how many children in their care went missing or why they ran away and staff didn’t know what to do if they did.
Many care homes are clustered in areas where houses tend to be much cheaper and wages lower than average, making the business more profitable. Target areas include Rochdale, Blackpool, the West Midlands, Margate in Kent, and Worthing in West Sussex.
Houses can become care homes without planning consent or permission from local councils. Authorities often only learn one is there if a problem arises.
Police services have produced “heat-maps” showing children’s care homes almost next door to sex offenders’ hostels and prison halfway houses.
It’s as though some private care homes unintentionally provide perverts with a supply of vulnerable children.
Thanet North MP Sir Roger Gale said that on one road in Margate, children in care were living “cheek by jowl” with 15 registered sex offenders.
A spokesman for the NSPCC said: “The Savile investigation showed sexual predators thrive when no one speaks out, so we have to keep encouraging children to come forward if they have been abused. Every year more than 20,000 sex offences against children are reported to police but we suspect it is just a small part of the problem.”
- Unthinkable: The Shocking Scandal Of The UK Sex Traffickers by Kris Hollington is published by Simon & Schuster £6.99.
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