by Girl A
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One Innocent Days
Chapter Two Culture Shock
Chapter Three Daddy
Chapter Four Grounded
Chapter Five The Honey Monster
Chapter Six Tick, Tick, Tick
Chapter Seven New Girl
Chapter Eight Emma’s Lying
Chapter Nine Nowhere to Turn
Chapter Ten A New Master
Chapter Eleven You’ve Got To Get Away
Chapter Twelve Don’t I Deserve Something?
Chapter Thirteen Disturbia
Chapter Fourteen Jane
Chapter Fifteen Two Blue Lines
Chapter Sixteen Speaking to the Authorities
Chapter Seventeen Escape
Chapter Eighteen Chloe
Chapter Nineteen Trying Again
Chapter Twenty Calpol and Paracetamol
Chapter Twenty-One It Will Come To Trial
Chapter Twenty-Two Ups and Downs
Chapter Twenty-Three The First Witness
Chapter Twenty-Four Daddy in the Dock
Chapter Twenty-Five Judgement Day
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Book
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 Britain’s 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.
About the Author
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.
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.
Prologue
It was the image of the clock on the wall that I tried to hold on to that day and, after all this time, it’s a memory I still cling to.
It was a child’s 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.
I’d 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 summer’s 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 wasn’t. It was about me. I am Girl A.
I can’t tell you my real name: I don’t want anybody to know who I really am. Slowly, I’m beginning to realise that what happened to me wasn’t 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 didn’t realise or didn’t 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, wasn’t it? And, anyway, if a few girls liked me slipped through society’s safety net, did it really matter?
I’m not perfect. I’m a long way from being perfect. Deep within me, I still feel a strong sense of shame for some of the things I did, and for my weakness in falling prey to my abusers. Even now I sometimes find it too painful, too raw, too shaming, to speak about it all. But I will try to tell you how it came to be, in the best way I can. Because if I can stop another girl ending up like me, I might learn to accept myself once again. Maybe.
People tell me my feelings about it all will fade, and I have to believe that they will. I do believe that they will, because the bottom line is that this should not have happened. I was a child. I was young and vulnerable. I was a victim.
For now, at least, my real name is one of the few secrets that have not been stripped bare. That’s mine to keep. You can call me Hannah, if you like.
So this is it, this is the sto
ry of Girl A. It’s a story that should never have happened but did, and one that will happen again if the right changes to our society aren’t made. This is my story.
Chapter One
Innocent Days
My early childhood was as close to idyllic as I can imagine.
I was born in Manchester in the early nineties, the first in what would become a brood of five happy children, and spent the first four years of my life at my grandparents’ home on the outskirts of the city.
Mum and Dad had met on a blind date in Manchester a few years earlier. By the time I was ready to start primary school, they had saved up enough money to afford a home of their own. They had also decided to move away from Manchester, and settled on the west Lancashire coast, where Dad set up a new business.
The new house was within yards of the sea, so from being small I remember being taken to the beach with my two younger sisters, Lizzie and Sophie and, a little later, the twins, Matthew and Stephen. In the summer we’d paddle and build sandcastles; in the winter we’d just enjoy walking our two German Shepherds out past the dunes and onto the flat, windswept sands.
Both dogs are a bit old and worn at the edges now, but back then they would strain on their leads to drag me headlong towards the beckoning waves.
The seaside it may have been, but I actually hated swimming, so I’d never venture far into the water. I was much happier playing on my bike, racing down the massive hill from the sea wall. It was dangerous, but it didn’t stop me – even when I went over the handlebars and ended up bruised and crying on the grass. I saw it as a game of dare that I couldn’t resist!
I was a little daredevil, but there was a softer side to me, too.
Since I was little, I’ve wanted to be a nurse and when I was four, I was given one of those white nurse’s outfits by Father Christmas. At home, me and Lizzie, who was just a year younger than I was, would spend hours playing nurse and patient.
‘Breathe in,’ I’d say very seriously, wielding my pretend stethoscope at my poor victim.
We’d wrap tissue around our arms and legs as casts and try to make them set with water. We’d end up looking like little mummies, and the carpet would look a bit of a mess too. But it was the most fun I could remember. Mum’s always said I had a caring side.
I didn’t particularly notice at the time, but in those early years by the seaside we always seemed to be pretty well off. Dad’s business was doing well. I was also busy building up something myself; in my case, a huge collection of Barbie dolls. All high gloss and perfect. I’d sit them in their pink convertible so they could sweep their way around our bungalow.
There was enough money for ballet lessons, and for me to spend a fortune on every bit of S Club 7 memorabilia that money could buy. Lizzie and I would watch the S Club 7 films and dance endlessly to their music. There was a lot of Britney, too.
For holidays we’d go to places like Butlin’s at Clacton, Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest, or else to campsites around the country. The family could guarantee that if there was ever a karaoke night, I’d be at the front of the queue, taking my well-rehearsed S Club 7 moves to the stage. I never could sing, but it didn’t stop me trying.
At school, though, I was a lot quieter – a bit like I am now – but I did well in all my lessons. Maths was the best, and by the time I left for secondary school I was getting level fives – the best you could do – in every subject. It was only me and a lad in my class that managed that in our SATS, and Mum and Dad were so proud they took me to the local shops and gave me £20 to spend. Some of it went on having my ears pierced, the rest on earrings and bracelets in Claire’s. Everyone loved Claire’s then, even though it was dead expensive. I think Dad thought there were probably better things I could have spent the money on, but he knew it was my treat and my choice.
‘Very nice,’ he said, smiling proudly as I showed off my new sparkly ears.
I was always a bit of a Daddy’s girl. Lizzie and I could always wrap him around our fingers. Mum would say no to something, and as soon as her back was turned we’d just go to Dad and get round him. Some of my favourite times with him were when we’d head off camping in nearby nature spots. We’d usually go for just a night or two, with our tent, a camp stove and marshmallows for us to toast at night. Mum would come too, if it was a summer holiday, but otherwise she’d tend to stay at home with the little ones so it would just be me, Dad and Lizzie.
Dad’s always been a bit of a practical joker, and he’d sometimes send the two of us off into the fields and riverbanks for duck eggs. We never actually found any – at least, not until the day he bought some secretly from a farm and dotted them around so we could have the pleasure of finding them. Years later, he told us he was still chuckling as he cooked them that morning. They tasted fab!
At night, we’d sit there looking up at the stars, the flames from the fire casting shadows across our faces. Sometimes Dad would tell us ghost stories that had us clinging to him once we were back inside the tent. Other times, we’d snuggle up to him while he told us stories from when he was a lad and the escapades he’d get up to, but there’d always be some kind of moral that he’d leave us with.
‘You don’t get anywhere in this life without hard work,’ he’d say, as we nestled into his side. ‘Just make sure you always do the best you can, so that you’re proud of yourself.’
In those days, Dad was the best teacher you could hope for: in some ways, better than the ones at the rather posh high school I went to. I’ll never forget heading off into Blackpool with my mates after school in the first couple of terms there, to go shopping or to the Pleasure Beach, where we could scream our heads off on the scariest rides. We’d have the time of our lives and it would become a regular event.
But then, one day, things began to change. When I went to ask Mum and Dad for the money to go out, Mum would look anxious.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ she would sigh. ‘I can’t give you any today, maybe next week.’
Over the next few weeks, I’d find myself greeted with the same response, and gradually I found myself going out less and less with my mates. I never understood why. I probably thought it was Mum and Dad being spoilsports. But soon all became clear.
* * *
They say that all good things come to an end and, in our case, at least financially, that’s what happened. We may never have been middle class, but we’d been comfortable. However, by the time I was well into my first year at high school, sales in Dad’s business began to slow down and his cash flow did the same.
He had to sell up, along with our home and, in the months that followed, we moved into a council house when I was just thirteen. It, too, was on the coast, but with no work, Mum and Dad decided it was time to head towards Manchester.
They chose Heywood because it was close enough to Dad’s roots to be a good location and yet cheap enough for us to be able to afford. People call it Monkey Town for some reason. One of my mates said it was because the chairs in some of the local pubs used to have holes in, big enough for a tail to go through. To me, it seems to fit. Heywood may have given us Coronation Street’s Julie Goodyear, but it’s full of folk who can’t stop chattering about other people’s business. That’s the bit I hate about it.
There used to be coal mines around the town, and nearly thirty cotton mills, but they’re all gone now – well, none of them have anything to do with cotton, any more, at least. Most of them were torn down to make way for the red-brick terraces and council houses that stretch away towards Ashworth Valley and the Pennines. The only thing that’s kept the town going, as far as I can see, is the distribution park there, with all its warehouses and long-haul lorries. We’re close to the M66 and the M62, and Bury’s just down the road, for some half-decent shops.
Not that it’s grim, but a poet once said the back-to-backs all the way from Heywood to Rochdale looked like they’d worked in the local factories themselves, let alone the people who lived in them.
Rochdale itself was big in the
days of smoke and cotton, but not any more. There’s a fancy town hall, but what you really notice looking down from the surrounding hills are the Seven Sisters – seven huge tower blocks that rise up towards the distant wind turbines on Scout Moor. They loom over the skyline in a really sinister way.
I’ll never forget the day we left the bright lights of Blackpool behind us (and all of my friends and lovely home) and drove up to this weird new horizon. I had a really strange feeling in my tummy. A strange sense of foreboding.
Chapter Two
Culture Shock
Starting at a new school is always hard, but starting towards the end of a school year when you’ve just turned thirteen is even harder – everyone has already made their friends for the year and newcomers feel excluded.
It was due to timings and paperwork that it took a while for me to get a place at school: for three months, I just kicked my heels either at home or else on the estate that was now my home.
Lizzie had started at her new primary school, and after a few weeks her new friends came calling at the house. One of them, Maddy, had a sister called Elouise, who was the same age as me.
I guess that’s what threw us together. Elouise wasn’t the brightest kid in the area, but we got on together and would hang about at each other’s houses, mostly watching TV and having sleepovers.
When I heard I’d be going to her school I felt a real sense of relief. At least I’d know someone there and, who knew, I might even end up in her class.
Despite the delay in getting a school place, it was all a bit of a rush in the end: I’d gone to a meeting at the school on the Friday and started that next Monday. Over that weekend, Mum and Dad rushed me to Asda in Rochdale so we could buy skirts, shirts and a pair of dolly shoes. I was meant to have a jumper, too, but we’d not gone to a proper school uniform place so I had to do without.
Elouise called for me that March morning, and the two of us set off. I felt nervous as a kitten as we went through the top gates of the school. She was smiling, while I tried to ignore the shouts and catcalls as the two of us headed towards Reception.