:00:00. > :00:00.a rapid reaction force for the region, which Moscow warns would be
:00:00. > :00:07.a threat to its national security. Time now for Panorama's Stolen
:00:08. > :00:12.Childhoods: The Grooming Scandal. Young voices ignored. He'd tell me
:00:13. > :00:18.to lay down. I told him I didn't want to. He said, well, I've got to.
:00:19. > :00:23.Children targeted, groomed and sexually exploited by older men. It
:00:24. > :00:30.needs to stop. Children are getting hurt. Children are getting abused.
:00:31. > :00:38.Three key warnings dismissed. Those who made them speak out. I wanted
:00:39. > :00:42.things that kept coming back, it was "Where's your evidence?" I was
:00:43. > :00:48.thinking, isn't that your job? And disturbing findings suppressed. I
:00:49. > :00:58.was subjected to the most intense personal hostility. I have never
:00:59. > :01:03.seen back covering like it. The abusers who remain free. We identify
:01:04. > :01:07.one of them. I don't understand why my life's been affected and his
:01:08. > :01:18.hasn't. The police and council in Rotherham finally called to account
:01:19. > :01:20.for failing children. They were raped by multiple perpetrators. They
:01:21. > :01:23.were trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England. They
:01:24. > :01:27.were abducted, beaten and intimidated. Tonight, Panorama
:01:28. > :01:29.investigates the scandal that has devastated the lives of more than
:01:30. > :01:44.1400 children in just one town. This is a story of stolen
:01:45. > :01:55.childhoods, of abuse dismissed and ignored for years. Each time Emma
:01:56. > :01:58.Jackson tells professionals about what happened, she wants to open
:01:59. > :02:07.eyes so those at risk today are protected. I was a child and I
:02:08. > :02:12.didn't know what I was involved in or what I was doing or what risks
:02:13. > :02:15.that I was taking. We're protecting Emma's identity and that of most of
:02:16. > :02:19.the girls and their families who've talked to us about sexual
:02:20. > :02:23.exploitation. I would get picked up. I would go into town and people
:02:24. > :02:26.would pull up in cars. I'd have to have sex with them or do whatever
:02:27. > :02:31.they wanted. Then they'd drop me back off. Another might come. That
:02:32. > :02:35.was my life. That was 11 years ago. She did try to tell the police what
:02:36. > :02:43.had happened to her. She was just 13, confused and vulnerable. They
:02:44. > :02:47.were pushing my head on the floor and grabbing my head and pulling me
:02:48. > :02:53.by my hair. I were saying that I didn't want to do it and stuff. They
:02:54. > :02:57.said, "Of course you want to do it." He didn't like girls saying no to
:02:58. > :03:02.him. He didn't accept it when they said no. She describes being abused
:03:03. > :03:08.by one man with his friends watching, egging him on. He said I
:03:09. > :03:14.were a white. And he punched me in the mouth. He said he had had enough
:03:15. > :03:20.of me. He said if I opened my mouth again he would do it harder. Emma
:03:21. > :03:23.was just one of at least 1400 children groomed and targeted for
:03:24. > :03:33.sex by older men, here in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham. I was
:03:34. > :03:36.going on a weekend with my friends, I started talking to some young
:03:37. > :03:40.boys. I built a friendship with them. As time went on they
:03:41. > :03:47.introduced older people. They just seemed to get older and older. She
:03:48. > :03:54.was being groomed. The child psychiatrist who treated Emma says
:03:55. > :04:03.it was like brainwashing. She was totally enthralled to those people.
:04:04. > :04:05.They had her under their thumbs, you know, absolutely, enslaving her to
:04:06. > :04:08.do everything that they wanted. For do everything that they wanted. For
:04:09. > :04:14.the first time Emma was keeping secrets from her parents. She was
:04:15. > :04:18.soon out of her depth. I wasn't mature enough to think about sex or
:04:19. > :04:38.anything like that. One evening she was singled out. We went up to the
:04:39. > :04:41.outdoor market stalls and then my main perpetrator took me away from
:04:42. > :04:45.my friend and the other man, and the next thing I knew he was raping me.
:04:46. > :04:48.In Rotherham, the exploitation of young girls by older men was first
:04:49. > :04:51.talked about in the 1990s. Back then, this abuse was labelled child
:04:52. > :04:54.prostitution. A youth organisation was set up by the council. It was
:04:55. > :04:58.called Risky Business. It became a place where victims felt listened
:04:59. > :05:01.to. They described their experiences to a researcher involved in a Home
:05:02. > :05:12.Office project. She's asked not to be identified. The workers in that
:05:13. > :05:15.project were the only people that those young people trusted, that
:05:16. > :05:18.were telling the complete story to and some of the stories that I heard
:05:19. > :05:26.very early on were just so graphic that I don't think I will ever
:05:27. > :05:32.forget them. We've spoken to nearly 20 families where children have been
:05:33. > :05:38.exploited. Their stories are shocking, often violent. Here in
:05:39. > :05:43.Clifton Park, girls describe being forced to go from abuser to abuser.
:05:44. > :05:46.Others talk about being trafficked to places like Manchester, Bradford
:05:47. > :05:52.and Bristol to have sex with strangers. Most, though not all, of
:05:53. > :05:56.the girls asking for help were white. For many years, Risky
:05:57. > :06:03.Business passed vital intelligence about their abusers to the police
:06:04. > :06:07.and Social Services. Among the men named was Arshid Hussain, known as
:06:08. > :06:13.Ash or Mad Ash. He has convictions for violence and intimidation. In
:06:14. > :06:21.1999, he was targeting a girl who we're calling Isobel. I'd just
:06:22. > :06:28.turned 14. He was very polite. He had good manners. He was very kind
:06:29. > :06:33.to me and my friends. What did you know about him? He was into some
:06:34. > :06:42.things he shouldn't be. What do you mean? He was into drugs and
:06:43. > :06:46.violence. He drove flash cars and dressed smartly, had a wife and
:06:47. > :06:49.children at home and was 24 when he began to abuse 14`year`old Isobel.
:06:50. > :06:53.My mum and dad were trying to stop things. My parents went to his
:06:54. > :07:00.house, to the police, to the authorities and he just continued
:07:01. > :07:03.it. They must have been desperate? The authorities said because I was
:07:04. > :07:08.consenting to it there was nothing they could do. Even though you were
:07:09. > :07:16.14 years old? Yeah. Over the next two years, she became pregnant
:07:17. > :07:19.twice. Once while in the council's care. Social workers often referred
:07:20. > :07:23.to Arshid Hussain as her boyfriend, even though they viewed him as
:07:24. > :07:31.dangerous. When I was pregnant, they had concerns for the baby because
:07:32. > :07:35.they said he was a violent man. A baby shouldn't be around a man like
:07:36. > :07:41.that, then why was I allowed? Because you were still a child.
:07:42. > :07:44.Yeah. Information gathered by the Home Office researcher showed Isobel
:07:45. > :07:55.was one of 18 girls who described Arshid Hussain as their boyfriend.
:07:56. > :07:58.All were said to be under 16. In 2002, the researcher identified
:07:59. > :08:08.nearly 270 girls in Rotherham being exploited by a number of men. I was
:08:09. > :08:11.collecting data on who the perpetrators were, what cars they
:08:12. > :08:14.were using, their grooming methods, their offending methods. I was
:08:15. > :08:20.collating information on professional responses. One of the
:08:21. > :08:26.cases she examined was Isobel's. She was going missing for weeks,
:08:27. > :08:32.sometimes months. Once, when police raided a house she was hiding in,
:08:33. > :08:36.they found Arshid Hussain. Me and him was upstairs in a bedroom and we
:08:37. > :08:43.was being intimate when the police raided it. They would have seen me
:08:44. > :08:52.with just some pants on, but under the bed. `` run under the bed. They
:08:53. > :08:55.would have seen him pulling some jogging bottoms up and heading
:08:56. > :08:59.towards the corner of the room. Would it have been obvious what had
:09:00. > :09:02.been going on? Yeah. That was the first time I ever saw him scared. I
:09:03. > :09:06.think he honestly thought, this is it, I'm going to get arrested. Now
:09:07. > :09:10.15, it was Isobel who was arrested, not Arshid Hussain. I was given a
:09:11. > :09:13.truncheon by him and he told me to save it. I was arrested for having a
:09:14. > :09:23.dangerous weapon. What happened to him? Nothing, he just went about his
:09:24. > :09:26.daily business. This man has been having sex with this under`age girl.
:09:27. > :09:31.That's a case that should be prosecuted. I don't understand why
:09:32. > :09:38.the police or Social Services took it upon themselves to excuse that
:09:39. > :09:48.behaviour. Isobel says Arshid Hussain was stopped by police on
:09:49. > :09:52.many occasions with her next to him. Even if the police was looking for
:09:53. > :09:55.him for something, he would be able to turn around, which he did plenty
:09:56. > :09:59.of times and say, "I'll play the race card, so they let me off." A
:10:00. > :10:02.quarter of a million people live in Rotherham. While most are white,
:10:03. > :10:09.about 8% come from different ethnic backgrounds. There's a well
:10:10. > :10:21.established Pakistani heritage population. When the Home Office
:10:22. > :10:24.researcher began to share her findings with the council, she told
:10:25. > :10:27.them most of the perpetrators being named were from that community. She
:10:28. > :10:31.was taken aback by the response from one official. She said you must
:10:32. > :10:37.never refer to that again. You must never refer to Asian men. And her
:10:38. > :10:40.other response was to book me on a two`day ethnicity and diversity
:10:41. > :10:47.course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues. In 2002, the draft of
:10:48. > :10:56.her final report was sent to the Home Office and the
:10:57. > :11:02.council on a Friday. She says that weekend the Risky Business office
:11:03. > :11:16.had unwanted visitors who let themselves in. They'd gained access
:11:17. > :11:19.to the office and taken my data. Out of the number of filing cabinets,
:11:20. > :11:23.there was one drawer emptied and it was emptied of my data. Who do you
:11:24. > :11:26.think would have done that? It had to be an employee of the council.
:11:27. > :11:29.Rotherham Council says it's unable to find anyone who recognises this
:11:30. > :11:37.series of events. The researcher then came under pressure to change
:11:38. > :11:40.her findings. She wouldn't. This report, written more than a decade
:11:41. > :11:45.ago, was given to both the council and police. It clearly should have
:11:46. > :11:47.led to action. But here it says, "Responsibility was continuously
:11:48. > :11:51.placed on young people's shoulders rather than with the suspected
:11:52. > :11:53.abusers." When the issues were raised with senior officials, the
:11:54. > :12:00.response was "defensiveness and hostility". Her report was never
:12:01. > :12:03.published and the council even tried unsuccessfully to sack her. I was
:12:04. > :12:08.subjected to the most intense personal hostility. There were
:12:09. > :12:13.threats made from a range of sources. I've never seen back
:12:14. > :12:21.covering like it and I still feel extremely angry about that. The
:12:22. > :12:25.response, in a nutshell, was that she was punished for speaking truth
:12:26. > :12:27.to power. Alexis Jay carried out the independent review that, last week,
:12:28. > :12:36.revealed the damage done by not tackling exploitation in Rotherham.
:12:37. > :12:40.If they had taken account of the content and been less concerned with
:12:41. > :12:44.their own images, then a great deal more might have been done at an
:12:45. > :12:57.earlier stage. There would soon be more warnings. In the meantime, the
:12:58. > :13:00.abuse continued. In 2003, it was 13`year`old Emma who was being
:13:01. > :13:08.abused. They started to use me more and more. I was just seen as trash
:13:09. > :13:11.really. Emma's mother knew something was wrong when neighbours told her
:13:12. > :13:14.they'd seen two men hanging around the house. She asked her daughter
:13:15. > :13:27.about it when she got home from school. That's when she just broke
:13:28. > :13:31.down and just kept saying, "They're raping me. They're raping me." I
:13:32. > :13:48.couldn't believe it. My reaction, I rang 999. It were just devastating.
:13:49. > :13:51.And the sergeants came into me and said, "Do you realise who your
:13:52. > :13:55.daughter has got involved with? We can't deal with it. We have to get
:13:56. > :14:00.the Serious Crime Squad." Emma was able to provide important evidence.
:14:01. > :14:12.He made me take my coat off and lay it on the floor. Then he told me to
:14:13. > :14:16.lay down on the floor and I told him I didn't want to. She'd hidden the
:14:17. > :14:20.clothes she was wearing on the different occasions when she was
:14:21. > :14:25.rained. She gave them to the police. `` raped. She didn't want me to see
:14:26. > :14:29.them. She'd hid them. She went and got them out and there were like six
:14:30. > :14:32.bags of clothes. There was a cream coat that had blood all over it.
:14:33. > :14:35.They took all these clothes away. But the police lost the coat and the
:14:36. > :14:38.rest of the potential DNA evidence. Emma then began to get threats from
:14:39. > :14:40.her abusers. Feeling frightened and unsupported, she withdrew her
:14:41. > :14:43.allegations. I was very confused, and basically, I just wanted to go
:14:44. > :14:49.back to my life before and get rid of it all. It wouldn't be long
:14:50. > :14:56.before her exploiters withdraw her back into their world. That year,
:14:57. > :14:57.2003, the authorities received their second clear warning about the
:14:58. > :15:08.seriousness of what was happening. It came from Dr Angie Heal. She was
:15:09. > :15:13.employed by South Yorkshire police to look at drugs crime. In
:15:14. > :15:21.Rotherham, she quickly identified links to sexual exploitation. It
:15:22. > :15:24.really didn't make any sense as to why there weren't major police
:15:25. > :15:27.operations that were being launched to investigate these issues. So she
:15:28. > :15:35.decided to write a report on the problem. Some of the police officers
:15:36. > :15:38.for the report gave information about circumstances in which young
:15:39. > :15:43.people were being found, the levels of abuse and violence and rapes that
:15:44. > :15:46.were happening. Her report was sent to senior police officers in South
:15:47. > :15:53.Yorkshire. And Rotherham council managers. She pointed to the lack of
:15:54. > :16:00.convictions. And to the police, named names. I didn't hold back on
:16:01. > :16:09.what I was reporting. And what actually happened? I don't think
:16:10. > :16:13.anything happened at that time. One of the things that kept coming back
:16:14. > :16:15.was, where's your evidence? I was thinking, isn't that your job to
:16:16. > :16:29.collect evidence? It was another warning dismissed. But the wider
:16:30. > :16:32.community was also getting worried. For many years, Jim Stevens ran a
:16:33. > :16:35.charity for homeless young people in Rotherham. His staff saw men
:16:36. > :16:46.targeting 16 and 17`year`old girls and boys at hostels. They told the
:16:47. > :16:49.police. And the council. We were getting responses from quite senior
:16:50. > :16:51.people within Social Services particularly and Safeguarding that
:16:52. > :16:57.there wasn't actually a problem in Rotherham at that time of any kind.
:16:58. > :16:59.And whenever we raised the issue of sexual exploitation we were
:17:00. > :17:04.considered to be unprofessional alarmists. However strong the
:17:05. > :17:07.denials, there was no let up in the abuse. The parents of yet another
:17:08. > :17:16.girl found themselves constantly on the phone to police. Reporting her
:17:17. > :17:19.missing. I've really lost count of how many times I would phone them in
:17:20. > :17:24.a week, it just depended, sometimes probably twice a day. Only now is
:17:25. > :17:30.their daughter able to describe how the people meant to protect made her
:17:31. > :17:35.feel. They try and make you feel ashamed and like it is your fault.
:17:36. > :17:41.That I were just a naughty child, and that I got bad behaviour.
:17:42. > :17:50.For four years, the family existed on a knife`edge. She went from a
:17:51. > :17:54.normal 13`year`old, reading books, Harry Potter books, stuff like that,
:17:55. > :17:57.she used to love it, into when police were fetching her back, she
:17:58. > :18:11.used to be dressed differently. She looked like she was going out
:18:12. > :18:15.clubbing. They were taking her away from us and we had to deal with it
:18:16. > :18:18.like, well, no you're not, you're not having her, we're going to fight
:18:19. > :18:22.back, we're going to change, keep changing her back so that they knew
:18:23. > :18:25.that there was somebody at the other end not letting them win and have
:18:26. > :18:30.our daughter. By now, this abuse had been blighting Rotherham for nearly
:18:31. > :18:38.a decade. At the end of 2004, the council finally appeared to be
:18:39. > :18:40.waking up to the problem. And sexual exploitation was discussed at an
:18:41. > :18:46.important meeting. We invited ourselves, we gate`crashed the
:18:47. > :18:51.meeting. It was chaired by the leader of the council. There were
:18:52. > :18:53.lots of heads of department there, there were senior social workers,
:18:54. > :19:00.people from police, from the youth service. They were given details of
:19:01. > :19:04.how girls were being groomed and exploited in Rotherham. Council
:19:05. > :19:14.leader Roger Stone appeared to some visibly shaken. He was very angry.
:19:15. > :19:17.He was shocked and I remember him saying, we're not having this, this
:19:18. > :19:21.has to stop. We were very, very optimistic after the meeting. For
:19:22. > :19:24.the first time, the statutory sector had seemed to recognise the issue
:19:25. > :19:32.and make a commitment to do something about it. But little
:19:33. > :19:38.seemed to happen. And finally their patience ran out. More than 30
:19:39. > :19:45.voluntary organisations wrote a joint letter to the council's then
:19:46. > :19:49.chief executive. We felt, right, let's go to the top, let the Chief
:19:50. > :19:54.Executive explain to us why there has been such a bad lack of
:19:55. > :20:01.progress. What was the response to your letter? We didn't get a
:20:02. > :20:04.response. So, why did it appear nothing was being done? At a council
:20:05. > :20:13.meeting in 2005, Roger Stone seemed to offer an explanation. The leader
:20:14. > :20:21.said we have to tread carefully on this because we don't want to upset
:20:22. > :20:24.the community. We had been told at the previous meeting that the
:20:25. > :20:27.perpetrators were Asian men and because of that and only because of
:20:28. > :20:35.that, I assumed the leader meant the Asian community. Mr Stone has told
:20:36. > :20:40.Panorama he can't remember what he said more than a decade ago but
:20:41. > :20:47.insists he did take action. Elsewhere, parents were also
:20:48. > :20:54.challenging the police. I said, well why can't you investigate what's
:20:55. > :21:02.going off now? And all I got after that was, I've told you, we can't
:21:03. > :21:05.because of racial tension. When this, it wasn't about race, this.
:21:06. > :21:08.This is about adults, some adults were doing to some children which
:21:09. > :21:11.left us devastated because we've got nowhere else to turn. And in 2006,
:21:12. > :21:14.another report from Angie Heal raised the issue. She said some
:21:15. > :21:20.workers in the town feared the abusers' ethnicity was one reason
:21:21. > :21:27.for a lack of police investigations. It was a third detailed warning
:21:28. > :21:30.about Rotherham's problems. There was issues of ethnicity, and some
:21:31. > :21:33.people felt that ethnicity was a barrier to investigating, that it
:21:34. > :21:43.was seen to be too sensitive an issue. If there had been direct
:21:44. > :21:45.engagement with the Pakistani heritage community and not through
:21:46. > :21:49.the conduit of the traditional I have to say male domination of the
:21:50. > :22:05.Imams in the mosques and elected members in the council, a lot more
:22:06. > :22:07.might have been done much sooner. Within Rotherham's Pakistani
:22:08. > :22:15.heritage community, there is bewilderment about why that wasn't
:22:16. > :22:20.done. I think also it was the lack of services response to what was
:22:21. > :22:26.going on. Turning a blind eye. And some ask what message the lack of
:22:27. > :22:33.investigations sent? Abuse is abuse, and you should never, ever shy away
:22:34. > :22:36.from pinpointing abuse. In terms of those men who perpetrated against
:22:37. > :22:43.white young girls, they will have been abusing internally within their
:22:44. > :22:50.own communities. And it's about time that we started to recognise and
:22:51. > :22:55.prosecute. Without prosecutions, new abusers were able to claim new
:22:56. > :22:58.victims. As one mother probably knows better than anyone. Both of
:22:59. > :23:04.Maggie Wilson's daughters were sexually exploited. It began when
:23:05. > :23:07.her eldest, Sarah, was just 11. She had two phones cos there were a
:23:08. > :23:12.pattern with phones, if it rang it was if it was a sign to, right it's
:23:13. > :23:16.time to meet and things like that. It got to a stage where I even had
:23:17. > :23:22.to lock the bedroom windows but she'd still get out cos there was no
:23:23. > :23:28.lock on the bathroom window. Again, she was desperately trying to get
:23:29. > :23:31.the police and council to help. Even when Sarah should have been
:23:32. > :23:36.protected in care, the abuse continued. Only later did Maggie
:23:37. > :23:50.discover her youngest daughter Laura was also being groomed. Did you
:23:51. > :24:16.think that she was getting drawn into exploitation in the same way
:24:17. > :24:19.Sarah had been? I didn't know. An official inquiry had known that
:24:20. > :24:22.Laura, like her sister, was being groomed. Maggie believes that if she
:24:23. > :24:28.had been given more help when she was first asked, things might have
:24:29. > :24:32.been different. If they had listened to me all of those years ago, Laura
:24:33. > :24:37.wouldn't be where she is now, she would be alive. Finally, in 2010,
:24:38. > :24:47.nearly 15 years after the abuse was identified, rather got its first
:24:48. > :24:54.convictions for sexual exploitation. Five men were jailed for a total of
:24:55. > :24:57.32 years. It should have been a turning point for the town but there
:24:58. > :25:03.had been no other major prosecutions since, and still the grooming and
:25:04. > :25:10.exploitation goes on. Until two years ago, this man's daughter was a
:25:11. > :25:14.target. Sometimes we found her in the park, sometimes we found her in
:25:15. > :25:17.Sheffield. They had already had a lot of contact with social workers
:25:18. > :25:24.and felt all the blame was being put at their door. We are not excellent
:25:25. > :25:34.parents, nobody is an excellent parent, but we did our best. What
:25:35. > :25:40.can you do? Apart from ring the police and they say you can't report
:25:41. > :25:42.something until it happens. He was shocked when he discovered Rotherham
:25:43. > :25:45.council had known about the men suspected of abusing his daughter
:25:46. > :25:54.since 2007, long before her abuse began. I was just sifting through
:25:55. > :25:58.it, looking through the notes they were sending, then I saw that,
:25:59. > :26:04.Rotherham Safeguarding. I read it and I went absolutely ballistic.
:26:05. > :26:07.Social workers had accidentally left this document in a bundle of other
:26:08. > :26:16.papers. This was a list of the names. What they were keeping from
:26:17. > :26:20.us. Did you know any of this? No, not one bit of it. It says your
:26:21. > :26:33.daughter and another girl are in contact with two of the men listed
:26:34. > :26:36.here. Yes. Down here it says these males have also featured in previous
:26:37. > :26:43.strategy meetings about safeguarding, dating back to 2007.
:26:44. > :26:49.If they had acted in 2007... It might not have happened to my
:26:50. > :26:53.daughter. Instead, she became yet another child in Rotherham to be
:26:54. > :26:56.sexually exploited. The only person in authority to resign for such
:26:57. > :26:59.failure has been the council leader, Roger Stone. Both Rotherham Council
:27:00. > :27:11.and South Yorkshire Police have apologised. They refused to be
:27:12. > :27:13.interviewed for this programme. But they say improvements have been made
:27:14. > :27:24.and they'll act on the recommendations. The man who abused
:27:25. > :27:33.Isabel when seh was 14 has still not been prosecuted. Why has my life
:27:34. > :27:37.been affected and he's gotten away with it? Through his solicitor,
:27:38. > :27:41.Arshid Hussain says he denies the criminal allegations against him.
:27:42. > :27:51.There is now a major police investigation into past cases. This
:27:52. > :28:02.is a scandal that has caused shock far beyond this one South Yorkshire
:28:03. > :28:09.town. A warning to all communities. It is essentially a hidden problem.
:28:10. > :28:12.You need to seek it out and identify it because the one thing that won't
:28:13. > :28:19.happen is that the individuals will come forward themselves easily and
:28:20. > :28:26.ask for help. And it is children who live with the consequences when
:28:27. > :28:29.others fail to act. Being portrayed by the people who you thought were
:28:30. > :28:32.there to protect you, that you genuinely believed would protect
:28:33. > :28:35.you, can you imagine what that does to a child? It is lifelong damage
:28:36. > :28:37.and it could have been prevented.