A new film illuminates the shocking depravity of these crimes.
The details of what grooming gangs did to young British girls are literally unbelievable. They are so grotesque that it is truly hard to believe that one human could do such things to another, never mind to young girls.
That is why court transcripts are such valuable documents. Courts are one of the last places in the UK where you will hear the truth. In trials, there is generally little tolerance of ideology or cliché and claims must be backed up by hard evidence.
When some of the grooming gangs were eventually brought to court and the truth was dragged into the light, their crimes were just as bad or even worse than campaigners had originally claimed. It was easy for many of us to be skeptical about the full extent of the scandal. After all, there have been many cases of grisly sounding crimes that have turned out to be hoaxes, designed to make some kind of ideological point. Like when Jussie Smollett, a gay black actor, falsely claimed he was attacked in liberal Chicago by Trump supporters, who supposedly put a noose around his neck and threw bleach at him. Or when the white players of the Duke University lacrosse team were accused by Crystal Mangum of raping her and using their influence to avoid prosecution – only for Mangum to reveal, 18 years later, that she had lied.
The grooming-gangs scandal sounds like a similarly fantastical story. Mostly Muslim men targeted primarily white British girls and subjected them to rape, trafficking, beatings and forced substance addiction. Meanwhile, police forces ignored and sometimes even facilitated this abuse, afraid that intervening would lead to them being called racist.
Thank God, then, for the trial transcripts. We now have the judge’s sentencing remarks in a 2013 case concerning a grooming gang from Oxford. Between 1998 and 2012, a group of 22 mostly Pakistani-origin men sexually abused, trafficked and tortured more than 300 children, predominantly girls. The scale and details of the crimes are so horrific as to almost defy belief. But no one can deny the truth of what went on and was allowed to go on when they see what Judge Peter Rook said as he sentenced the men – some to life imprisonment. He didn’t hold back in his condemnation of their crimes:
‘On occasions the depravity was extreme. You targeted the young girls because they were vulnerable, underage and out of control. They tended to have troubled upbringings and unsettled home lives. You subjected them to repeated abuse. This was a pattern which repeated itself over and over again.’
For those who dispute the use of the term ‘grooming’ in these cases, Rook added:
‘Each victim was “groomed”, coerced and intimidated to facilitate the commission of the offences and to make the likelihood of them ever reporting them remote. This involved planning. You would build up their trust, providing them with drink, drugs and attention which they craved. The effect was that some complainants became addicted to drugs, while others had an existing habit hardened. You would develop power over the children which would drive a wedge between them and their parents. If a girl showed reluctance, you would enforce compliance with threats and brutality.’
Then, Rook detailed some of the depravity, which is probably one of the most disturbing things you will read in a long time:
‘You, Mohammed Karrar, prepared [the victim] for gang anal rape by using a pump to expand her anal passage. You subjected her to a gang rape by five or six men. At one point she had four men inside her. A red ball was placed in her mouth to keep her quiet.’
When you read the transcript, there is no doubt that these gangs were motivated by more than sexual perversion. They hated the girls and viewed them as less than human. As difficult reading as this is, it is important that as many people as possible know what happened and what was allowed to happen in towns and cities across the UK. As such, I and fellow filmmaker Ann McElhinney have taken the court transcript and had it re-enacted by award-winning British actor Dominic Frisby. It is 100 per cent verbatim and illustrates a piece of British history that the establishment would like to bury. We cannot flinch away from the truth.
You can watch the trailer here and watch the full length re-enactment below:
Phelim Mcaleer is an Irish journalist based in Los Angeles, who specialises in verbatim plays and podcasts.
by Phelim McAleer
