August 30, 2025 • 52 mins
In this powerful and deeply moving episode, Fiona Goddard shares her harrowing story as a survivor of a grooming gang. With honesty and courage, Fiona opens up about the abuse she endured, the ways it affected her life, and the strength it took to reclaim her voice. She sheds light not only on her personal journey but also on the broader issues surrounding grooming gangs—how they operate, why victims are often silenced, and what needs to change to better protect vulnerable young people. This conversation is raw, emotional, and inspiring.
Fiona’s testimony is a reminder of the resilience of survivors and the importance of listening to their stories.
⚠️ Content warning: This episode discusses grooming, abuse, and sexual exploitation, which may be distressing for some listeners.
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Join our Facebook group and discuss this episode:
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Fiona’s testimony is a reminder of the resilience of survivors and the importance of listening to their stories.
⚠️ Content warning: This episode discusses grooming, abuse, and sexual exploitation, which may be distressing for some listeners.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/across-the-pond--6537033/support.
LEAVE US THOSE 5 STAR REVIEWS! THEY REALLY HELP US!
Visit our website for all the latest and buy Guys books at:
https://www.acrossthepondpodcast.co.uk/
We run on Coffee! Want to buy us one?
https://coff.ee/acrossthepondpod
Join our Facebook group and discuss this episode:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1374944543747219
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, for effect, dear our aliens.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Our difference is worldwide would vanish if we were facing
an alien threat. Perhaps we need some outside universal threat
to make us recognize this common bound.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Breaking news tonight, Sean Diddy Combs has been arrested in
an unhappy hotel. There's a relation to some comments that
you made on a Facebook page.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
This is a Fox News alert.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
The Epstein files have been released.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Across the Pond.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You're looking at now, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Everything that happens now is happening for sure. Now, welcome back,
guys to another episode from Across the Pond. Today, we're
joined by Fiona. Now, Fiona's been through an extremely harrowing
and unimaginable experience and she's here today to talk about
that experience that she went through, which does involve g
(01:19):
gangs and essay and also the advocating and campaigning that
she is now currently doing at this present moment. Fiona,
it's lovely to have you on the show and thank
you for taking the time.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
To beat with us. Thank you, Fiona.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I suppose if you could start really with when you
first when this actually really did start, so when you
were twelve and you were in the care home.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So I was taking into a children's home in around
about twelve thirteen, and I did have previous trauma. There
was domestic violence and mental health issues at home, which
was the reason I ended up in the children's hope. Now,
I had not been exposed to say before that point.
(02:14):
When we went into the care home, there were girls
already that were targeted by creditors.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Outside of the care home, the.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Men used to park in cars and they'd light outside
the gates, and if any of the young girls tried leaving,
they'd pull the cars. We'll put the side of the room,
try to learn them in the cars continuously ride though
threatened them. One day, me and another girl from the
children's home, we kind of rebelled a little bit and
(02:43):
ran out of the children's home and wandered off into
the town center, and we asked an Asian male who
was a cash machine for a lighter. And I vaguely
knew the man from the estate I've run up on.
He solved like clothes and stuff like that on the
(03:04):
estate and cars, and he was very active, so a
lot of the young people already knew him. So he
said he didn't have a lighter, but he could take
us to buy one, and because I kind of bigely
knew him, after a lot of toing and froing and
a bit of conversation, we decided we'd get in the car.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
And we were naives. We were only thirteen so at
this point, so we were like.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Oh, there's two of us, there's only one of him,
and you know, thinking a bit naive like a child would.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And then he took us to a pectual.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Station and he bought us the lighter, but he also
bought us alcohol and like more cigarettes and loads of
other stuff, and he went part hoping there was nothing
malicious that happened that night. It was all quite calm
(03:58):
and building up a friendship, cards in the car and
listening to music, telling stories. He started picking us up
quite often, nearing us on a daily basis on an evening,
and we'd do the same things and he'd get us
to talk about our.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Past and open up.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And then one day said that he didn't want to
drive around because he wanted to be able to drink
the alcohol with us, so he asked if we could
go to a hotel.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
And we'd been out with being so many times by.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
This point that we felt quite big, short and safe,
and so even though we were still a little bit hesitanting,
we agreed. Now that night, he drived us with so
much alcohol that the other girl had a bit. She
was basically unconscious on one side of the bed. I
was in the middle and I was very out of it,
(04:53):
and he was on the other side. And then he
reached over and put his hands in my underwear and
he I said me, Now, before this, my friend had
been telling me how much she liked this person and that,
and she felt a real connection with me. And so
in that moment I froze. And then afterwards I felt
so guilty. I felt like I betrayed my friend, and
(05:16):
I didn't really know how to process stuff. And I
stayed quiet for a few days, and then he started
contacting her, asking if she'd go out by herself because
he really liked her. So she asked me, if you
are right for I go out by myself with him,
And in that moment, I didn't want to seem like
(05:36):
jealous or many things like yeah, I do, but I
just wanted to know something first, and I told her
what had happened.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
But he had been.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Targeting her in private for quite a while and already
had manipulated her a lot, to the point she didn't
believe it.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
He said stuff to me like, oh, when you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Tell her you're going to come out by yourself, she's
going to make up a story because she's gonna be jealous.
And because she's only thirteen, she was easily manipulated. And
like this man who was at this point between twenty
five and thirty. I couldn't tell you the exact age,
but he was like a heck of a lot older
than us, probably bout twenty five, I think. So she
(06:16):
started going out with him by herself, and she was
going out with him all the time then, and that
proceeded to be a four year relationship. Now, the children's homes,
they knew that we were going out with him, and
then they knew about all the other men, and they
didn't intervene at all. They didn't. It was also being normalized.
(06:39):
So even after this incident, because they were normalized in it,
and the other girls in the children's home were doing
the same thing, and another girl moved in and she
was already getting exploited before she come into the children's storm.
I ended up starting going out with her because I
still didn't see anything wrong with it. I thought this
one half incident that has and I must have done
(07:01):
something wrong, and I didn't quite understand. And even though
it was highlighted at this point that I was being
and that I was potentially a victim of CSA, they
didn't really do anything about it.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
That it just blamed us. They told us that it
was our lifestyle choices.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And completely shut down any type of education. It's so
enabled in his head. So the manipulation that was coming
from the men and the brainwashing that was coming from
the men was being forced by the children's from staff,
the police officers, and the social workers, and we didn't
really know that anything was wrong. I ended up then
(07:46):
getting taken into a house that there's a long story
behind it. I don't know how much you want me
to go into the story behind it.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
As much as you would like to share.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Fionna, the other girl that i'd moved into the children's home,
had taken me out one day to meet her boyfriend.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
She was thirteen.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
He was fought here and she taken me out to
meet him to a snooker club, and in the snooper club,
there were many other men there.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
One of them.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
He was really skinny and skeleton like, and I felt quite.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Sorry for him.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He'd had a car accident and it had left him
lifelong disabilities. And then this is when thediugs started getting
brought into stuff because of until that point, I've never
touched anything like that.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
I had drank the alcohol, but I'd never touched I
felt like that. So he taken me to.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
A deal that he was picking up, and in that
time he was asking me for my phone number, and
because I felt sorry for him, because he was clearly
like physically disabled at this point, and he seemed to
really struggle with it and be lonely and down, or
this is the impression he gave to meet at the time, anywhere,
I can tell you he was far from that. I'd
(09:04):
gave him my phone number and I didn't really plan
on having much contact with him.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
But we'll skip.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Forward a few days and we'd me and a girl
had been taken to the middle of these moorlands, and
because we were reluctant to do what the men had said,
they dumped us in the middle of these marlands. And
I mean, there's nothing around for miles. It's just fields
and farms, and do you know, like we were right,
We were dumped right next to a pig's farm, and
(09:35):
I'd rang everyone in my phone to become a child
pick us up, and no one would. And the only
person left was this matter and Stumb assumed in is before,
So I ran him and he said, yes, book, come
out and get you. This was before we had you know,
like location sharing and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
So he had to drive.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, he looks like to drive around the mall lands
each trying to find which like.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Country road we were still on.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And when he turned up, there were him and two
other men in the car, two Pakistani.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Men and one Algerim.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And when we got in the car, they said the
wanting to take us to a house just so that
we could all chill.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
That there was no one in the house.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
The men in the car they were aged between twenty
five and thirty twenty five and thirty five. And then
they took us to this house and when we went
in there was an old man, now well not old,
but it looked it was forty far. I was thirteen,
and well they are a bit older.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
Actually, that's old for a thirteen year old.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, I actually think I was a bit older because
we skipped forward a little bit. I think I might
have been about fifteen at this point, and when we
got taken into this house, it was the same kinds
of things with the first man, because there were a
lot of men in between this as well. But I
don't remember too much about it because the sub traumas
(11:07):
that used and the trauma and stuff. Yeah, there's a
big part that's kind of wopped out. But then I
remember this part because these many are the ones that
are convicted, So it was the same type of environment.
They promoted it as like a party house, so it
was supposed to be fun, and there were lots of substances.
(11:31):
I'llohol on the other because it turns out these people
were involved in criminal activity of every kind of ima
imagine the books. And then slowly over time, first they
started trying to pretend that they were my boyfriends, but
that wasn't what I was lacking, and I think they
(11:52):
realized that pretty quick. So then the next time they
tried targeting, they got me to open up about my past,
and then they realized that I was craving a family, stability, safety,
somewhere to belong, someone to protect me, and that's what
they started trying to offer me.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
So to speak.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So they say I was part of the family that
I belonged to here, they'd always protect me, and they
made me feel like I had what I was lacking.
And at the time, I didn't realize that was a
purposeful thing that they'd done, that they'd tried to find
out my vulnerabilities and then exploited them. At the time,
I didn't understand that. I just thought these people were
(12:34):
my friends. I was really grown up because they wanted
to be my friends. They were going to provide me
everything I'd been missing in my life. And then things
started to turn so being initial essays were more coercion,
more like guilty people. Well, we've done all of this
for you, why what you're doing this for us and
(12:56):
backing us into a corner. And I didn't understand what
was going on. I didn't want to do the things,
but they basically convinced me that because they'd done all
of this for me, that it was normal for me
to do that back for them. And while all this
is going on, social services in the police and the
care and staff are still reinforcing this.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Type of thing as well. So it was.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Really difficult to see the red flags and the warning
size and not know that this wasn't normal. After a
certain amount of time had passed, I started to pick
up on things like they'd get me to bring my
friends out to these parties, and I'd always thought they
(13:41):
were just talking to me as an underaged girl because
I was grown up and I was special and stuff
like this. And then I found out that these girls
that had been bringing they were contacting them in private
and weaving them out and spending time with them. And
it made me start thinking, well, why are they getting
so many underaged girls? How they can't all be really
(14:01):
grown up? And do you know what I mean exactly? Yeah,
it made me such question, so I started speaking out
about it against them, and then things developed them from
the Coasian to two threats, and then from the threats
it led to to be violence and like violent essays.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
And so you can see a progression of how it happens.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And obviously, if you want to ask me any questions
about the specific instances, I can go into like how
the threats happened, I can go into the actual business
is and how it progressed. I just don't know how
much I'm allowed to sharing a live podcast though.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
You're you honestly, Fiona, as much as you're comfortable with sharing,
I'm more than happy to hear it. And you know,
I think it's so important, like how brave you are
just and strong coming forward and even sharing this and
putting this out there. So I I want you to
be comfortable during this podcast. So it's as much as
(15:05):
you want to, you know, open.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Up, right, So the threats and stuff, it'd be.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Like they showed me a video and he was fighting
against another guy, but then you can see his schools
start to change ship and he basically beat into DFTF
like sorry, I don't know what words I can say.
(15:35):
He showed me and said like, oh, we can't show
you the last bit of that until you've officially part
of the family, like like insinuating an initiation. But it
was used to make me realize that they could do this.
They also this is where yeah, they also said, this
(15:55):
is where we don't unlived bodies, and then two days
later an actual body was found there and it was
all on the news. And then there was an illegal
immigrant that had come into the country on the back
of a lorry and when he come, they were talking
about them calling him Rambo, and they.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Kept saying it and laughing.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And it turns out he's been carustrated in Pakistan for
essay and children. Then he had sweated to the Philippines
and he was wanted by firing squad for attacking women
and children. Now hence, like they said, Rambo, I don't
know exactly the ins and that's what I did. But
they said that he went Rambo on the loads of
(16:39):
women and children. Then he fled from there to the
UK and that night, me and another fourteen year old
girl was because I had actually had the bedroom at
this house at this point, they had a bedroom specified
for me that I used to say, and I used
to eat the house a good five years.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
That was seven. I was there how.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
Many bedrooms, how many people in the town.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
There was two bedrooms, and in the main bedroom he
had like three beds and like him and his brothers
and his cousins were sleeping there. And then there were
a little box room, and in the box room there
were just one bed. There were noll like bed sheets
or bedding at like just the bed in the back
of the room.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
And that's where I was designated sleep.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Do you think they were switching so obviously now you
said earlier they were inviting these other girls around which
had been connected through you, unbeknown to you what their
true intentions were. Do you think they were having these
girls then saying oh, that's your your special room. So
the same type of story what they've been feeding into
(17:43):
you as a minor.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I think in what hard had done it. They've had
multiple houses.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Really, the actually got taken to a few weather Yeah,
I got taken to the few with a few of
the houses by the end, one of them was used
to take a lot of the girl's tip the.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
One I was.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I don't think too many other girls got taken there
during that time. But it was disposed to me about
a year later by a care home staff member that
he was actually highlighted by the police.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
As being a child I say, for twenty years before.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
He abused me, so it were it was well known.
So I think the girls were targeted and they were
like a mean girl by him that run this house.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
It's called Slai. That's how he got twenty years in
prison for great and childhood.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I don't know how to say it, but he candled
it up at anyway inside out here he like, I
think he tired girls for specific periods of time and
took them to that house and had the men come
to the house.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Because the men.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Would come from all over the country to come from Oxford, Blackburn,
older Manchester. They'd come not in games stuff like, they
come from everywhere to this house and then the world
other properties and other girls have been getting taken there.
(19:16):
Like not all of the men were that one house
all of the time. So I think sometimes some of
the men they'd like split up like divide and conquered
type of thing and be taking girls to these different houses.
And then every now and again they'd all be like
one place and they'd kind of lure as many girls
to that place as possible and mainly abound like ad and.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Stuff like that. They'd be like, oh, there's.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
People coming up from Birmingham, and get all your mates
out there, expecting a proper party when they get here,
and stuff like this, and they draw it all into
that one place.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So this Rambo character when he's arrived now to the UK,
so this is obviously.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
I suppose one of the gen members with them. Did
he did he then? Was he the boss?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Did he take over or was it all a collective
kind of operational.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It's been all kinds of played. Like the illegal immigrant
and he's called Mets. He only came that one night.
He was brought from Blackburn and he's snuck into the
bedroom while Meat and the other girl was asleep, and
he started touching us both while we were asleep, and
I woke up and I was trying to get him
to stop, and he wouldn't, and then he stopped touching me,
(20:33):
but I realized he was touching the other girl and
she was asleep, and I brought her to the house
and I was like struggling with all the guilt and
stuff like that, and I were asking him stuff going no,
she likes it, she likes trust me, and I was saying,
she does that, she's asleep. In the end of I said,
I'll let you do it to me if he stopped
touching her. So he did, and then it was dragging
(20:54):
on and on and on, and it with the worst
thing ever because he was just touching them. And in
the end up I basically said to her, will you
hear you up and get it finished because it was
just it was so traumatic and it was I just
felt so vulnerable for such an extended period of time.
And that's when I found out it's being castrated. He said, well,
I can't do anything else. I'm a unit and that and.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Then not alter it. I found out obviously he was
castrated for say, in Pakistan, So.
Speaker 6 (21:23):
Why do you even doing it? It's just like I
thought that would.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
God, I'm going to have to look it up myself
after this, because if he's been, it isn't like.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
To be honest with the geek.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And I genuinely do not think like that it's attaching
to a minor. I think it wouldn't seem with the
criminal activity, the control, the coercion and manipulation, because like
they didn't just have me getting essayed, they had me
county lining and stuff fly perraps and if we're all
(22:01):
like LinkedIn together and used me.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
From multiple purposes.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And I genuinely don't because they always target to betting
children as well, so it's from like Cuba, and I
think it's more to do with the control and the
coasion rather than attaching to a minor. I think that
they know they can get more control over a younger
(22:25):
girl than an older girl. And then because it tends
to choose dynamics once they reach eighteen. They get them
addicted to harder substances and they get them doing adult
work in the streets. They get them to get like
their own bedstick, and they're basically pimping them out.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
They're making money off of them.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
But they're also using that woman then to take the
younger girls to that house, so they've got an older
woman there and they feel a bit more safe. And
then there's that grooming the younger girls. And I think
it's at all says that the groom when they runderage,
they take advantage, They essay, they there's a he couple
lot of violence and stuff like that evolves. It can
(23:10):
be really extreme, like grooming doesn't quite get through the
level of how bad some of this stuff actually is.
And then I think, so then turn them into like
a lifelong accip where they're going to be making money
off and benefiting from and they've molded them into that.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
So I do think.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
It's more complex than just having an attraction to a minor.
I think there's more going on there and it's more intentional.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Mm hmmm hm.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
So so the ultimate goalers that they're making money off
us for life.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, sorry, you broke up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Then yeah, the ultimate goal is then for them, they're
making money off you.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
Girls for life.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yes, yeah, basically, see, I was a bit fine and
I fought back against them and I came with a
lot of dramas and they did end up leaving me
alone with bounds back when I got to eighteen. But
there's other girls that are seeing it happened till we
got taken to at once and there was an older
girl there and she was like to stay on the
(24:16):
hard substance days.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
She was doing adult work.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
And then she took us in the kitchen and she
said to me and this other girl, run.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Get out of the flat, go and never go near
these men again. And we did.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We went, We ran out the flat and that was
the first exposure I had to the older girls that
it was still happening to and how it had developed.
And then since then, I've had a lot of experience
with a lot of them, and I don't think people
understand as well that it isn't just child exploitation, it
is adult exploitation as well.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
It develops and it builds into that. So like things
then changed at.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
That property, at that house that I was taken to,
and more and more incidents just that it is happening.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
They got more and more severe.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
He ended up getting moved to Dewsbury, which is the
town right next to Bradford. And one of the men
from the house had a nephew that lived there, and
he gave out my address to his nephew and stuff
like that, and then him and four or five cars
of people turning up.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
And like some of the instances that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
These men did as well, like the really severe, and
I'll taught you through some of them that they got
prosecuted for. So Isaia saying he was prosecuted for him
one of the incidents he was prosecuted for. We've been
in his family house with his mom downstairs and his
family all downstairs, and we were upstairs at.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Him and multiple men.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
We've all been doing substances and drinking alcohol and stuff.
Then the men of the other men all like, right,
I've had enough now I'm gonna go home.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
And I got up to go up. So I was like, yeah,
I'm gonna go as well.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And I stood up to go up, and he started
attacking and saying, you've been here all night doing this, that,
and the other.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
What do you mean you're gonna go? You owe me now.
I tried to call someone to pick me up, and
he took my phone and he smashed.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It on the floor. All of the other men just
left and left this happening. Then he pushed me onto
his bed and he started pinning me down, and he
had this little TV at the bottom of the bed,
and it had a built in DVD player. And what
he did, boy, he'd like put his arm over the
top of me and his full body weight on me
so I couldn't move. And he picked up this remote
(26:37):
and he pressed play on it, and the TV.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Came on and there was animal.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And on there, and it was something he must have
already been watching, because as soon as he pressed play,
it came up. And he was trying to pin me
down while that will play you and trying to pull
my bottom part of my clubing off. I'd been screaming,
and his eldest brother actually came running in the bedroom
and he saved me. He got his brother a smith,
(27:08):
told me to run downstairs to his car. As I
ran down the stairs, his mum was like she was
still at the bottom the stairs, and then she was
standing like a panner's food and she was just looking.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
Like, oh, what's going on there? And I rand passed
him and got in the car, and then his brother
came out, and his eldest brother.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
He were really nice, and thinking back now, I realized
how many times he tried to intervene in this and
stop it. And he sat in the car and I
remember him saying to me, don't go near them again.
Do you not go near them? They're bad men. They
really have bad men, and they will unalive year one
day he was then done for attempted raped and then
(27:53):
he got I think it was sixteen year in prison.
And then another one was when i'd moved to Dusburm,
and he was actually a younger guy.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
He wasn't much older than me, so I was like sixteen.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
These were between the years of sixteen and seventeen, and
he'd come, he'd taken they took me into a semi
independent living so it was like a slat, but staff
would come for multiple hours during the day and there
was a big unit like a children's zone, just a
couple of streets with where all the staff were and
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
But even though i'd been.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Highlighted as a high risk of CSE, and it had
been highlighted that I was was likely actively being severely exploited.
They still put me into independent living in the areas
where all these people were. And then they took my
house keys. They'd started turning up at the house and
(28:50):
they took my house keys, so I couldn't stop them
getting in. They'd smash everything up in that house, like
my bed and everything. I had nothing left. I was
sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I had to
get in and out is the building through the window
because they had the key. They'd squirre food all over
the walls, they'd urine it all over the floors, and
(29:10):
then he started spiking then and there was a lot
of like violence and aggressions.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
I got beaten a heck of a lot during.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
This time, like broken bones and bruised his head to
tour and he'd start spiking my drinks. And there was
one incident where I was like unconscious on the mattress
on the floor in the I slowely trash bedroom and
I was coming around in and out and he was
saying then and I remember looking over his shoulder and
(29:38):
two of his friends were stuff in the corner with
the room watching, and I remember a light shining in
my eyes, and because I was undressed, I kept trying
to put my hands over my private parts, and I
remember saying, yeah, but one touched yourself there, and I
wasn't trying to do that.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
I was just I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
I was like sep me conscious and I was trying
to covering myself in what way I because I thought
he was shining a light at me.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
He turns out he was recording him, and he then
spread a.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Video all around the esdate of me getting sad, and
I had everyone laughing at me and saying stuff to
me for probably about twelve months after that. And he's
serving seventeen years for that and another incident, and so
like another one of them, he would pin me against
the wall by my net and hold soccer bottles in
(30:31):
his hands and see how we wanted to smash the
bottle into my face, but he couldn't do.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
It because I had nice eyes.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
But I had to keep my eyes open because if
I closed my eyes then he probably do it if
he couldn't see my eyes and stuff. Then after doing
all that, he'd be like that, come upstairs with me
and have sex with me. And obviously, after being against
the wall and threating with a bottle, didn't really want
to say no. And we used to avoid him, like
(30:57):
we try and avoid him, and we wouldn't leave the
house till like three o'clock in the morning, and we
walked down the street and then the next one, you know,
a karen fell up bit beside you, and it were
him and his friends like they were like they were
driving the people up and down the road, just waiting
till they could get to wass and there was no
way to stay you away from him. And at fifteen,
(31:18):
I felt pregnant and they actually Social services actually took
my dart from me. She went through a faster adoption
because in the court records it said I was exposed to.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
A finger ring, a peak ring, and it wasn't a
safe environment for a child.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Obviously I was still a child at the time as well,
and I was in the kind of the local authority.
But they left meet there for two more years and
they took my baby. When I said to him, I'd
asked them if they'd moved me out of the city
to my mother and baby unit with my child, and
they said it was too much funding to waste on someone.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Like me, and they refused.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
They said that what was happening to me was my
chaotic lifestyle choices, that I was a child adult worker,
you know, like sex worker. They said I was a
twos at sixteen of running a brothel.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
But it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It was the men had taken my keys and I
could not stop them from coming to the house, and
four or five cars had turned up and just coming
and I had no choice. But everything in my records
was reported out. It was excusing what the men did
and blaming me. Recently returned across some PaperWorks that I've
been sent from West Yorkshire Police to a care home
(32:41):
staff member, where it is that I was high risk
of say and that I was most likely actively being
expo and that there was a common acceptance that I
was actively being I said, then in the next me,
it is not to report me missing anymore unless I
(33:04):
have a change in behavior or they see me actively
being dragged into a car.
Speaker 6 (33:10):
You know, this just absolutely disgusts me.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
It really does like hearing and you as a child
yourself that they weren't doing jobs to protect you.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
There's so much more that was said in them finals
as well.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
There was the seven instances where I was actually reported
the irp S, and one of them I was fourteen
and I've been spiked and I'd actually had a bit
and they had like vomit on in the air and
the men panic to bit. But they wouldn't take me
to the hospital and staid they dropped me back off
at the children's for.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
When I went in, the staff went started going me
and said, look, I can't be bother. This was on
my fourteenth birthday. I said, I can't bother.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I've been spiked, and they called me an attention see
for and then the.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Other girl I always said, no, she has she had
a fit.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
And then I went into my room and they literally
left me for three days.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
They didn't come and check on me.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
The only time they did was when they came up
the police officer to try and arrest me for a
criminal damage I've done where I broke in the mirror
in my bedroom the week before and the police officer
I couldn't move off the better because don't leave my
head up and I was still covering vomits and the
police officer said, I can't arrest her while she's in
that condition. You need to get some medical help. And
the staff member went, or, don't worry about it. She's
(34:30):
just an attention see, because she knows what she's doing.
And they left me even longer. So for three days,
I didn't drink, I didn't eat, I didn't even go
to the toilet.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
I did not move out that bet. I could not
get up, I could not stay awake or anything.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Then when I did finally get up and managed to
clean myself and go down, says it's week. They said, oh,
you finally decided to grace us with your presence. They
never once sought me medical attention in that time. And
then another time, when I was sixteen, I'd been violently
yessays and I'd gone back to the children's home and
(35:06):
I had blood down my legs, booising around my neck,
around my arms, you know, being pins and stuff. And
it's happened in a bathtub and I had for the
outlet fight the overflowed bit. I had a bruise in
the shape of that on my back. And I walked
in and I was crying, and they said, what's wrong?
I said, I think I've been RPD and they went, oh, God,
(35:31):
do you want us to ring the police? And in
that moment I was absolutely traumatized. I said no, I
just want to be by myself and I ran off
up to my bedroom. But they never ran the police.
They never reported it, and they've got like a safeguard
in juty, but yet they decided not.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
To report this. That's when I was covered.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
In and in a really bad way. I actually kept
them clothes in a carrier bag in the wardrobe twelve
months afterwards. All it would have taken was for the
police to knock on the door and then to bad everything.
And they never reported it. But I love such faith
(36:09):
in the services because of the way they treat me
and the way they'd responded to me that I didn't
want to be the one to reach out to them.
I wanted someone to take it out of my hands
and do it themselves, but they wouldn't. They just blamed me.
In the end, up, I just bent the clothes. I
gave up as far stood stating a bent and that
were the last time that I ever thought about the
(36:32):
clothes at that point. And then obviously when they started
the investigation was being came flooding back because they didn't
start the investigation either because they wanted to. I had
to expose them to the media for them to do it.
But the man that did that, he actually got away
with it because I couldn't prove all of the evidence
either though it were documented, because see the incident was documented,
(36:54):
it was wrote in my care records that this had happened.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
It was just never reported to their place.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
But because of the length of time, I couldn't idea
the man, I couldn't idea the street. I couldn't idea
enough of it to get a conviction. So because they
never reported it back then, he contely got away with it.
And then, like to say, it is for years this continued.
I got arrested instead of my perpetrators many times, and
(37:22):
then by the end of it, in twenty thirteen, the
police turned up at my house and they said another
young girl would come forward and they wanted my evidence.
So I told him everything. And this wasn't the first time.
I'd already disclosed seven times, at least while I was
(37:43):
in the children's ms, anything like that happening.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I've disclosed it like seven times, but.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I disposed it all again and they said, right, we're
going to come and take an official statement and show
you some pictures. And then they started idnowing my calls,
would not get back in contact with me, and I
got really annoyed because they brought everything back up from
it and then just left me again.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
That was about that time. About six months.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
After that, the Rover Room scandal brought and I said
straight away, I said, it's not just Roberin, it's grafit.
But we look into it, they're just too busy covering
it over. So I contacted the BBC and I gave
them my Cay records where it had been documenting it
since two thousand and eight when I was fourteen, and
(38:30):
it documented it from them. They posted it and the
next day the police decided to do an investigation. The
investigation investigations five years, and then in twenty nineteen nine
men were convicted for twenty two offenses and got sentences
that told of dred and thirty two and a half
(38:50):
year between them, and then I had a serious case
review and that was published in twenty twenty one that
said that all services to protect me, that they I
didn't treat me as they would have done any of
the adult or any other child, and obviously the fact
that I'd lost my daughter and that it has caused
(39:10):
life long and not just for me but for my children.
Now then I'd got targeted by social services again when
I started speaking out in the media because I waved
my nomininity in two and nineteen, so as that is
saying that I was struggling with mental health problems because
I've not had for everything, that I would not be
(39:31):
emotionally capable of looking after my children because of what
has happened to me. Their worish statement was that I
blamed them for what had happened to me and where
my life sip. But to keep my children, I had
to take responsibility for what has happened to me and
where my lives sip.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
They took my children into postic cares.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I was fifty four a week while I had to
prove because they also will said that I was emotionally
disregulated and suffering with delusions by thinking they'd exposed me
a harm that they did not, and all of this
like another layer of bribery and manipulation.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
To try and shut me up.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I thought it's for fifty five a week and then
two weeks before we were going into court for a
contested hearing, I've got a phone call.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Then you can go pick children now and they can
come home.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
And they came home in October twenty and twenty feet
and since then I've said nothing.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Sheal savties. They've left me alone.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
But rather than the silence men, it made me speak
even louder then because I just thought, I'm not letting
them like I'm not easily manipulated, but many of the
survivors are extremely vulnerable and if their experience is the
same thing, they would not be able.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
To fight against it like I did. And they've being
saled once being let down, had to live the life
so la trauma.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And then just as the rebuilding will come and do
something like this again and take what like what the
bill off of them again.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
It's just it's so unfair.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
So I started speaking even more then and then I've
been on every single mainstream needs near every single newspaper,
being on live TV. I've done test releases with Chemi
bas and not on the Tory Party. I've done podcasts
at social media. I've met with Jess Phillips in the
home office. I've met baroness Casey, who did the report
(41:19):
which has issued led to the issue of national inquiry.
I actually told Jess Phillips in a meeting a few
weeks before the report was released, power the senor for
an inquiry should go. And the report that baroness Casey
released was exactly the same as what I've said. So
I have been invited to join the Home Office Committee
(41:40):
Victim Years on Committee, but I don't agree with decisions
the governments are making. At the moments, I've decided I
don't want to. I don't want to be involved and
not be able to speak up against things that I
don't agree with, or people think that I'm involved in
decisions that I don't agree with. So instead me and
another survivor and the sister of another survivors for as previous,
(42:03):
we've decided to start.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
The process of ominisity.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
I see so all the failings that we experience because
my kids is that unique, it is common. It happened
to storm many and maybe if exactly the same things
as well. So we've started working on up ninity.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
I see. So we can.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Offer these historical victims and the prevent ones all the
support and help that we never got and that we needed.
Rather than be involved in something where I'm shyns and
the making decisions that I don't agree with, I want
to be able to actively help and make it just
instidit change people's lives.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
I think it's just, you know, it's just fabulous that
you're actually continuing to advocate and fight for people that
were in your situation after everything you've been through, and
you know, to be honest.
Speaker 6 (42:58):
With you, like these surfaces, the social surfaces.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And the people that were involved in this need to
take accountability. They need to be held responsible because just
as if not more responsible for what has actually happened,
because they have allowed you to be in a situation
where it's been ongoing for such a long period of time,
(43:24):
you've lost your childhood.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Well, this is it so like the first incident that
they'd documented, where they had said it was the CT
was in two thousand and eight and I'd.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
Only been.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I said, by two men at that point, whereas they
did nothing and they didn't intervene, and by the time
I was seventeen, I'd been sed by over fifty men.
They could have stopped it at two and instead I
had to go through over fifty other men doing it
meth and most of them did it more than once.
(44:01):
Like so for me, that first two that happened they're
not responsible for because they didn't know. But once they
highlighted it after the first two, everyone that happened after
them they are responsible.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
For, because the social workers knew, the care one knew,
and the.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Police knew from that point, and they knew every single
time it happened after that.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
And like I said, that's probably hundreds of physical a pes.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Essays by over fifty men that they could have stopped,
and they didn't. They actually made me more vulnerable to
it because once they took my daughters from them, I
completely gave up hope. I didn't think I'd ever be
able to get out of it. I actually started trying
to unlive themselves really regularly because I didn't see any
other way out. I felt completely alone. There were no one,
(44:53):
no one there, and I didn't know I was going
to get out. The men used to tell me I
had nice legs. I think I must have developed like
a bit of psychosis from the trauma, and they actually
took a sharp article and mutilated my legs thinking they
might leave me alone. Then and it is classic style
(45:13):
mutilation on the records, and that they like I did
that when I was about sixteen seventeen, and the scars
are still extremely noticeable now when I'm thirty two. Like,
it was really severe and my attendance popped out from
inside my legs, and the dots had to bring me
down and push attendants and stuff back inside the cups
and stuff.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
And because they were.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
So wide because it's stitching, they had to pack them
and just bound into them. So it led to like
severe trauma to the point where, yeah, I genuinely didn't
think I would ever get away with meet. My grandma
actually had my funeral planned out because she didn't think
(45:53):
i'd make it past eighteen.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
My grandma blessed her. She passed away last year.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
From Alzheimer's, but she used to come and rescue me
from the mid those fields.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Different cities, all sorts.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
I don't think she understood exactly what happened this year,
so going on that we're wrong, but she didn't understand,
but she come and saved me at three five o'clock
in the morning and all sorts, and she was the
only person I did ave. And then when it came
to the trial. I wasn't allowed to speak to her
because she would given evidence and we used to speak
every day, and I wasn't allowed to speak to her
(46:27):
for every year, and then by the time the trial
come around, it turned out she developed Alzheimers in that
year and deterate is really quick, so by the time
the child was done and she couldn't even really remember
who I was. I never got to know that I
stood up and that the men got done, and that
I'd rebuilt my life and that I were doing okay.
(46:50):
So she never got to see that part, which breaks
my heart because she was my biggest part.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
With my grandma.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us, Fiona.
Is there anything you want to leave any any girls,
any anyone that was ever in the situation or is
currently possibly going through a situation?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Really, I really want anyone that's whether it's historical, whether
it's e evently going on to reach out for help,
to whist place its sauce to be able to get
them help and the support to help them rebuild.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
We have a Facebook page called Healing Heart's Life after cs.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Within the process of getting registered as a CIC will
proper take for another eight week and we're in the
process to building a website, but anyone can reach us
on Healing Hearts in this Facebook page and we're more
than happy to advocate as give advice. Supart, we have
given out some coping mechanism selves care hampers as well
(47:52):
to our victims and the wellment to help them develop
coping mechanisms in farm Room Books Prices.
Speaker 4 (48:00):
I think speaking out is important and.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Being able to take back contro all of your life
because while you're silent and you're not speaking out, they've
always got that control over your life and you never
know who else they're doing it too, and the impact
it has on you mentally, physically, emotionally, your lifestyle choices
that you don't find. These survives end up making the
(48:25):
wrong relationship twice. That's been exposed to predators over and
over again because taking the sense of the vulnerabilities and
the target them and because it's such a lack of support,
they don't get a chance to get over that.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
So if anyone does need the help, please reach out
for it.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
And we're also trying to really push doing education within
public sectors and schools, children's forms and you've sent us
stuff like that, so we can start educating from year
seven onwards, trying to teach the children the warning signs.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
We are gonna do some.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
More videos on our Facebook page to into the children
talking about the warning signs, what to look out for
that hopefully their parents can use to be able to
show their children if they neat. I am supporting current
victims as well as historical ones. We know this issue
has not gone away, and we also still know that
(49:26):
the services are still not dealing with it appropriately. They
they are better than they used to be, but then
they're not. They're not right still. So we do understand,
and we've already taught the system and we've fought against
it and spoken about so we know how to fight
for them as well, and we we have our.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Hearts in it. So yeah, do anyone that needs the help,
please do reach out.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
Thank you so much Fiona for sharing with us today
and for our listens. I'll be adding the link to
Fiona's Facebook group with this podcast.
Speaker 6 (50:05):
Across all platforms once live.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
As she said, please do reach out if you're suffering
anything similar or know of someone who is. Thank you
so much for today, Fiona, and until next time, Guys
take carestttttttttttttttts
You know, for effect, dear our aliens.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Our difference is worldwide would vanish if we were facing
an alien threat. Perhaps we need some outside universal threat
to make us recognize this common bound.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Breaking news tonight, Sean Diddy Combs has been arrested in
an unhappy hotel. There's a relation to some comments that
you made on a Facebook page.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
This is a Fox News alert.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
The Epstein files have been released.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Across the Pond.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You're looking at now, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Everything that happens now is happening for sure. Now, welcome back,
guys to another episode from Across the Pond. Today, we're
joined by Fiona. Now, Fiona's been through an extremely harrowing
and unimaginable experience and she's here today to talk about
that experience that she went through, which does involve g
(01:19):
gangs and essay and also the advocating and campaigning that
she is now currently doing at this present moment. Fiona,
it's lovely to have you on the show and thank
you for taking the time.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
To beat with us. Thank you, Fiona.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I suppose if you could start really with when you
first when this actually really did start, so when you
were twelve and you were in the care home.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So I was taking into a children's home in around
about twelve thirteen, and I did have previous trauma. There
was domestic violence and mental health issues at home, which
was the reason I ended up in the children's hope. Now,
I had not been exposed to say before that point.
(02:14):
When we went into the care home, there were girls
already that were targeted by creditors.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Outside of the care home, the.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Men used to park in cars and they'd light outside
the gates, and if any of the young girls tried leaving,
they'd pull the cars. We'll put the side of the room,
try to learn them in the cars continuously ride though
threatened them. One day, me and another girl from the
children's home, we kind of rebelled a little bit and
(02:43):
ran out of the children's home and wandered off into
the town center, and we asked an Asian male who
was a cash machine for a lighter. And I vaguely
knew the man from the estate I've run up on.
He solved like clothes and stuff like that on the
(03:04):
estate and cars, and he was very active, so a
lot of the young people already knew him. So he
said he didn't have a lighter, but he could take
us to buy one, and because I kind of bigely
knew him, after a lot of toing and froing and
a bit of conversation, we decided we'd get in the car.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
And we were naives. We were only thirteen so at
this point, so we were like.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Oh, there's two of us, there's only one of him,
and you know, thinking a bit naive like a child would.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And then he took us to a pectual.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Station and he bought us the lighter, but he also
bought us alcohol and like more cigarettes and loads of
other stuff, and he went part hoping there was nothing
malicious that happened that night. It was all quite calm
(03:58):
and building up a friendship, cards in the car and
listening to music, telling stories. He started picking us up
quite often, nearing us on a daily basis on an evening,
and we'd do the same things and he'd get us
to talk about our.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Past and open up.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And then one day said that he didn't want to
drive around because he wanted to be able to drink
the alcohol with us, so he asked if we could
go to a hotel.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
And we'd been out with being so many times by.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
This point that we felt quite big, short and safe,
and so even though we were still a little bit hesitanting,
we agreed. Now that night, he drived us with so
much alcohol that the other girl had a bit. She
was basically unconscious on one side of the bed. I
was in the middle and I was very out of it,
(04:53):
and he was on the other side. And then he
reached over and put his hands in my underwear and
he I said me, Now, before this, my friend had
been telling me how much she liked this person and that,
and she felt a real connection with me. And so
in that moment I froze. And then afterwards I felt
so guilty. I felt like I betrayed my friend, and
(05:16):
I didn't really know how to process stuff. And I
stayed quiet for a few days, and then he started
contacting her, asking if she'd go out by herself because
he really liked her. So she asked me, if you
are right for I go out by myself with him,
And in that moment, I didn't want to seem like
(05:36):
jealous or many things like yeah, I do, but I
just wanted to know something first, and I told her
what had happened.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
But he had been.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Targeting her in private for quite a while and already
had manipulated her a lot, to the point she didn't
believe it.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
He said stuff to me like, oh, when you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Tell her you're going to come out by yourself, she's
going to make up a story because she's gonna be jealous.
And because she's only thirteen, she was easily manipulated. And
like this man who was at this point between twenty
five and thirty. I couldn't tell you the exact age,
but he was like a heck of a lot older
than us, probably bout twenty five, I think. So she
(06:16):
started going out with him by herself, and she was
going out with him all the time then, and that
proceeded to be a four year relationship. Now, the children's homes,
they knew that we were going out with him, and
then they knew about all the other men, and they
didn't intervene at all. They didn't. It was also being normalized.
(06:39):
So even after this incident, because they were normalized in it,
and the other girls in the children's home were doing
the same thing, and another girl moved in and she
was already getting exploited before she come into the children's storm.
I ended up starting going out with her because I
still didn't see anything wrong with it. I thought this
one half incident that has and I must have done
(07:01):
something wrong, and I didn't quite understand. And even though
it was highlighted at this point that I was being
and that I was potentially a victim of CSA, they
didn't really do anything about it.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
That it just blamed us. They told us that it
was our lifestyle choices.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And completely shut down any type of education. It's so
enabled in his head. So the manipulation that was coming
from the men and the brainwashing that was coming from
the men was being forced by the children's from staff,
the police officers, and the social workers, and we didn't
really know that anything was wrong. I ended up then
(07:46):
getting taken into a house that there's a long story
behind it. I don't know how much you want me
to go into the story behind it.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
As much as you would like to share.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Fionna, the other girl that i'd moved into the children's home,
had taken me out one day to meet her boyfriend.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
She was thirteen.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
He was fought here and she taken me out to
meet him to a snooker club, and in the snooper club,
there were many other men there.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
One of them.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
He was really skinny and skeleton like, and I felt quite.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Sorry for him.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He'd had a car accident and it had left him
lifelong disabilities. And then this is when thediugs started getting
brought into stuff because of until that point, I've never
touched anything like that.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
I had drank the alcohol, but I'd never touched I
felt like that. So he taken me to.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
A deal that he was picking up, and in that
time he was asking me for my phone number, and
because I felt sorry for him, because he was clearly
like physically disabled at this point, and he seemed to
really struggle with it and be lonely and down, or
this is the impression he gave to meet at the time, anywhere,
I can tell you he was far from that. I'd
(09:04):
gave him my phone number and I didn't really plan
on having much contact with him.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
But we'll skip.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Forward a few days and we'd me and a girl
had been taken to the middle of these moorlands, and
because we were reluctant to do what the men had said,
they dumped us in the middle of these marlands. And
I mean, there's nothing around for miles. It's just fields
and farms, and do you know, like we were right,
We were dumped right next to a pig's farm, and
(09:35):
I'd rang everyone in my phone to become a child
pick us up, and no one would. And the only
person left was this matter and Stumb assumed in is before,
So I ran him and he said, yes, book, come
out and get you. This was before we had you know,
like location sharing and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
So he had to drive.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, he looks like to drive around the mall lands
each trying to find which like.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Country road we were still on.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And when he turned up, there were him and two
other men in the car, two Pakistani.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Men and one Algerim.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And when we got in the car, they said the
wanting to take us to a house just so that
we could all chill.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
That there was no one in the house.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
The men in the car they were aged between twenty
five and thirty twenty five and thirty five. And then
they took us to this house and when we went
in there was an old man, now well not old,
but it looked it was forty far. I was thirteen,
and well they are a bit older.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
Actually, that's old for a thirteen year old.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, I actually think I was a bit older because
we skipped forward a little bit. I think I might
have been about fifteen at this point, and when we
got taken into this house, it was the same kinds
of things with the first man, because there were a
lot of men in between this as well. But I
don't remember too much about it because the sub traumas
(11:07):
that used and the trauma and stuff. Yeah, there's a
big part that's kind of wopped out. But then I
remember this part because these many are the ones that
are convicted, So it was the same type of environment.
They promoted it as like a party house, so it
was supposed to be fun, and there were lots of substances.
(11:31):
I'llohol on the other because it turns out these people
were involved in criminal activity of every kind of ima
imagine the books. And then slowly over time, first they
started trying to pretend that they were my boyfriends, but
that wasn't what I was lacking, and I think they
(11:52):
realized that pretty quick. So then the next time they
tried targeting, they got me to open up about my past,
and then they realized that I was craving a family, stability, safety,
somewhere to belong, someone to protect me, and that's what
they started trying to offer me.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
So to speak.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So they say I was part of the family that
I belonged to here, they'd always protect me, and they
made me feel like I had what I was lacking.
And at the time, I didn't realize that was a
purposeful thing that they'd done, that they'd tried to find
out my vulnerabilities and then exploited them. At the time,
I didn't understand that. I just thought these people were
(12:34):
my friends. I was really grown up because they wanted
to be my friends. They were going to provide me
everything I'd been missing in my life. And then things
started to turn so being initial essays were more coercion,
more like guilty people. Well, we've done all of this
for you, why what you're doing this for us and
(12:56):
backing us into a corner. And I didn't understand what
was going on. I didn't want to do the things,
but they basically convinced me that because they'd done all
of this for me, that it was normal for me
to do that back for them. And while all this
is going on, social services in the police and the
care and staff are still reinforcing this.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Type of thing as well. So it was.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Really difficult to see the red flags and the warning
size and not know that this wasn't normal. After a
certain amount of time had passed, I started to pick
up on things like they'd get me to bring my
friends out to these parties, and I'd always thought they
(13:41):
were just talking to me as an underaged girl because
I was grown up and I was special and stuff
like this. And then I found out that these girls
that had been bringing they were contacting them in private
and weaving them out and spending time with them. And
it made me start thinking, well, why are they getting
so many underaged girls? How they can't all be really
(14:01):
grown up? And do you know what I mean exactly? Yeah,
it made me such question, so I started speaking out
about it against them, and then things developed them from
the Coasian to two threats, and then from the threats
it led to to be violence and like violent essays.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
And so you can see a progression of how it happens.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And obviously, if you want to ask me any questions
about the specific instances, I can go into like how
the threats happened, I can go into the actual business
is and how it progressed. I just don't know how
much I'm allowed to sharing a live podcast though.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
You're you honestly, Fiona, as much as you're comfortable with sharing,
I'm more than happy to hear it. And you know,
I think it's so important, like how brave you are
just and strong coming forward and even sharing this and
putting this out there. So I I want you to
be comfortable during this podcast. So it's as much as
(15:05):
you want to, you know, open.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Up, right, So the threats and stuff, it'd be.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Like they showed me a video and he was fighting
against another guy, but then you can see his schools
start to change ship and he basically beat into DFTF
like sorry, I don't know what words I can say.
(15:35):
He showed me and said like, oh, we can't show
you the last bit of that until you've officially part
of the family, like like insinuating an initiation. But it
was used to make me realize that they could do this.
They also this is where yeah, they also said, this
(15:55):
is where we don't unlived bodies, and then two days
later an actual body was found there and it was
all on the news. And then there was an illegal
immigrant that had come into the country on the back
of a lorry and when he come, they were talking
about them calling him Rambo, and they.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Kept saying it and laughing.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And it turns out he's been carustrated in Pakistan for
essay and children. Then he had sweated to the Philippines
and he was wanted by firing squad for attacking women
and children. Now hence, like they said, Rambo, I don't
know exactly the ins and that's what I did. But
they said that he went Rambo on the loads of
(16:39):
women and children. Then he fled from there to the
UK and that night, me and another fourteen year old
girl was because I had actually had the bedroom at
this house at this point, they had a bedroom specified
for me that I used to say, and I used
to eat the house a good five years.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
That was seven. I was there how.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
Many bedrooms, how many people in the town.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
There was two bedrooms, and in the main bedroom he
had like three beds and like him and his brothers
and his cousins were sleeping there. And then there were
a little box room, and in the box room there
were just one bed. There were noll like bed sheets
or bedding at like just the bed in the back
of the room.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
And that's where I was designated sleep.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Do you think they were switching so obviously now you
said earlier they were inviting these other girls around which
had been connected through you, unbeknown to you what their
true intentions were. Do you think they were having these
girls then saying oh, that's your your special room. So
the same type of story what they've been feeding into
(17:43):
you as a minor.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I think in what hard had done it. They've had
multiple houses.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Really, the actually got taken to a few weather Yeah,
I got taken to the few with a few of
the houses by the end, one of them was used
to take a lot of the girl's tip the.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
One I was.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I don't think too many other girls got taken there
during that time. But it was disposed to me about
a year later by a care home staff member that
he was actually highlighted by the police.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
As being a child I say, for twenty years before.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
He abused me, so it were it was well known.
So I think the girls were targeted and they were
like a mean girl by him that run this house.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
It's called Slai. That's how he got twenty years in
prison for great and childhood.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I don't know how to say it, but he candled
it up at anyway inside out here he like, I
think he tired girls for specific periods of time and
took them to that house and had the men come
to the house.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Because the men.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Would come from all over the country to come from Oxford, Blackburn,
older Manchester. They'd come not in games stuff like, they
come from everywhere to this house and then the world
other properties and other girls have been getting taken there.
(19:16):
Like not all of the men were that one house
all of the time. So I think sometimes some of
the men they'd like split up like divide and conquered
type of thing and be taking girls to these different houses.
And then every now and again they'd all be like
one place and they'd kind of lure as many girls
to that place as possible and mainly abound like ad and.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Stuff like that. They'd be like, oh, there's.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
People coming up from Birmingham, and get all your mates
out there, expecting a proper party when they get here,
and stuff like this, and they draw it all into
that one place.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So this Rambo character when he's arrived now to the UK,
so this is obviously.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
I suppose one of the gen members with them. Did
he did he then? Was he the boss?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Did he take over or was it all a collective
kind of operational.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It's been all kinds of played. Like the illegal immigrant
and he's called Mets. He only came that one night.
He was brought from Blackburn and he's snuck into the
bedroom while Meat and the other girl was asleep, and
he started touching us both while we were asleep, and
I woke up and I was trying to get him
to stop, and he wouldn't, and then he stopped touching me,
(20:33):
but I realized he was touching the other girl and
she was asleep, and I brought her to the house
and I was like struggling with all the guilt and
stuff like that, and I were asking him stuff going no,
she likes it, she likes trust me, and I was saying,
she does that, she's asleep. In the end of I said,
I'll let you do it to me if he stopped
touching her. So he did, and then it was dragging
(20:54):
on and on and on, and it with the worst
thing ever because he was just touching them. And in
the end up I basically said to her, will you
hear you up and get it finished because it was
just it was so traumatic and it was I just
felt so vulnerable for such an extended period of time.
And that's when I found out it's being castrated. He said, well,
I can't do anything else. I'm a unit and that and.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Then not alter it. I found out obviously he was
castrated for say, in Pakistan, So.
Speaker 6 (21:23):
Why do you even doing it? It's just like I
thought that would.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
God, I'm going to have to look it up myself
after this, because if he's been, it isn't like.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
To be honest with the geek.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And I genuinely do not think like that it's attaching
to a minor. I think it wouldn't seem with the
criminal activity, the control, the coercion and manipulation, because like
they didn't just have me getting essayed, they had me
county lining and stuff fly perraps and if we're all
(22:01):
like LinkedIn together and used me.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
From multiple purposes.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And I genuinely don't because they always target to betting
children as well, so it's from like Cuba, and I
think it's more to do with the control and the
coasion rather than attaching to a minor. I think that
they know they can get more control over a younger
(22:25):
girl than an older girl. And then because it tends
to choose dynamics once they reach eighteen. They get them
addicted to harder substances and they get them doing adult
work in the streets. They get them to get like
their own bedstick, and they're basically pimping them out.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
They're making money off of them.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
But they're also using that woman then to take the
younger girls to that house, so they've got an older
woman there and they feel a bit more safe. And
then there's that grooming the younger girls. And I think
it's at all says that the groom when they runderage,
they take advantage, They essay, they there's a he couple
lot of violence and stuff like that evolves. It can
(23:10):
be really extreme, like grooming doesn't quite get through the
level of how bad some of this stuff actually is.
And then I think, so then turn them into like
a lifelong accip where they're going to be making money
off and benefiting from and they've molded them into that.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
So I do think.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
It's more complex than just having an attraction to a minor.
I think there's more going on there and it's more intentional.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Mm hmmm hm.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
So so the ultimate goalers that they're making money off
us for life.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, sorry, you broke up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Then yeah, the ultimate goal is then for them, they're
making money off you.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
Girls for life.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yes, yeah, basically, see, I was a bit fine and
I fought back against them and I came with a
lot of dramas and they did end up leaving me
alone with bounds back when I got to eighteen. But
there's other girls that are seeing it happened till we
got taken to at once and there was an older
girl there and she was like to stay on the
(24:16):
hard substance days.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
She was doing adult work.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
And then she took us in the kitchen and she
said to me and this other girl, run.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Get out of the flat, go and never go near
these men again. And we did.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We went, We ran out the flat and that was
the first exposure I had to the older girls that
it was still happening to and how it had developed.
And then since then, I've had a lot of experience
with a lot of them, and I don't think people
understand as well that it isn't just child exploitation, it
is adult exploitation as well.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
It develops and it builds into that. So like things
then changed at.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
That property, at that house that I was taken to,
and more and more incidents just that it is happening.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
They got more and more severe.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
He ended up getting moved to Dewsbury, which is the
town right next to Bradford. And one of the men
from the house had a nephew that lived there, and
he gave out my address to his nephew and stuff
like that, and then him and four or five cars
of people turning up.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
And like some of the instances that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
These men did as well, like the really severe, and
I'll taught you through some of them that they got
prosecuted for. So Isaia saying he was prosecuted for him
one of the incidents he was prosecuted for. We've been
in his family house with his mom downstairs and his
family all downstairs, and we were upstairs at.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Him and multiple men.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
We've all been doing substances and drinking alcohol and stuff.
Then the men of the other men all like, right,
I've had enough now I'm gonna go home.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
And I got up to go up. So I was like, yeah,
I'm gonna go as well.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And I stood up to go up, and he started
attacking and saying, you've been here all night doing this, that,
and the other.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
What do you mean you're gonna go? You owe me now.
I tried to call someone to pick me up, and
he took my phone and he smashed.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It on the floor. All of the other men just
left and left this happening. Then he pushed me onto
his bed and he started pinning me down, and he
had this little TV at the bottom of the bed,
and it had a built in DVD player. And what
he did, boy, he'd like put his arm over the
top of me and his full body weight on me
so I couldn't move. And he picked up this remote
(26:37):
and he pressed play on it, and the TV.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Came on and there was animal.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And on there, and it was something he must have
already been watching, because as soon as he pressed play,
it came up. And he was trying to pin me
down while that will play you and trying to pull
my bottom part of my clubing off. I'd been screaming,
and his eldest brother actually came running in the bedroom
and he saved me. He got his brother a smith,
(27:08):
told me to run downstairs to his car. As I
ran down the stairs, his mum was like she was
still at the bottom the stairs, and then she was
standing like a panner's food and she was just looking.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
Like, oh, what's going on there? And I rand passed
him and got in the car, and then his brother
came out, and his eldest brother.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
He were really nice, and thinking back now, I realized
how many times he tried to intervene in this and
stop it. And he sat in the car and I
remember him saying to me, don't go near them again.
Do you not go near them? They're bad men. They
really have bad men, and they will unalive year one
day he was then done for attempted raped and then
(27:53):
he got I think it was sixteen year in prison.
And then another one was when i'd moved to Dusburm,
and he was actually a younger guy.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
He wasn't much older than me, so I was like sixteen.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
These were between the years of sixteen and seventeen, and
he'd come, he'd taken they took me into a semi
independent living so it was like a slat, but staff
would come for multiple hours during the day and there
was a big unit like a children's zone, just a
couple of streets with where all the staff were and
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
But even though i'd been.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Highlighted as a high risk of CSE, and it had
been highlighted that I was was likely actively being severely exploited.
They still put me into independent living in the areas
where all these people were. And then they took my
house keys. They'd started turning up at the house and
(28:50):
they took my house keys, so I couldn't stop them
getting in. They'd smash everything up in that house, like
my bed and everything. I had nothing left. I was
sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I had to
get in and out is the building through the window
because they had the key. They'd squirre food all over
the walls, they'd urine it all over the floors, and
(29:10):
then he started spiking then and there was a lot
of like violence and aggressions.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
I got beaten a heck of a lot during.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
This time, like broken bones and bruised his head to
tour and he'd start spiking my drinks. And there was
one incident where I was like unconscious on the mattress
on the floor in the I slowely trash bedroom and
I was coming around in and out and he was
saying then and I remember looking over his shoulder and
(29:38):
two of his friends were stuff in the corner with
the room watching, and I remember a light shining in
my eyes, and because I was undressed, I kept trying
to put my hands over my private parts, and I
remember saying, yeah, but one touched yourself there, and I
wasn't trying to do that.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
I was just I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
I was like sep me conscious and I was trying
to covering myself in what way I because I thought
he was shining a light at me.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
He turns out he was recording him, and he then
spread a.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Video all around the esdate of me getting sad, and
I had everyone laughing at me and saying stuff to
me for probably about twelve months after that. And he's
serving seventeen years for that and another incident, and so
like another one of them, he would pin me against
the wall by my net and hold soccer bottles in
(30:31):
his hands and see how we wanted to smash the
bottle into my face, but he couldn't do.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
It because I had nice eyes.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
But I had to keep my eyes open because if
I closed my eyes then he probably do it if
he couldn't see my eyes and stuff. Then after doing
all that, he'd be like that, come upstairs with me
and have sex with me. And obviously, after being against
the wall and threating with a bottle, didn't really want
to say no. And we used to avoid him, like
(30:57):
we try and avoid him, and we wouldn't leave the
house till like three o'clock in the morning, and we
walked down the street and then the next one, you know,
a karen fell up bit beside you, and it were
him and his friends like they were like they were
driving the people up and down the road, just waiting
till they could get to wass and there was no
way to stay you away from him. And at fifteen,
(31:18):
I felt pregnant and they actually Social services actually took
my dart from me. She went through a faster adoption
because in the court records it said I was exposed to.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
A finger ring, a peak ring, and it wasn't a
safe environment for a child.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Obviously I was still a child at the time as well,
and I was in the kind of the local authority.
But they left meet there for two more years and
they took my baby. When I said to him, I'd
asked them if they'd moved me out of the city
to my mother and baby unit with my child, and
they said it was too much funding to waste on someone.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Like me, and they refused.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
They said that what was happening to me was my
chaotic lifestyle choices, that I was a child adult worker,
you know, like sex worker. They said I was a
twos at sixteen of running a brothel.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
But it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It was the men had taken my keys and I
could not stop them from coming to the house, and
four or five cars had turned up and just coming
and I had no choice. But everything in my records
was reported out. It was excusing what the men did
and blaming me. Recently returned across some PaperWorks that I've
been sent from West Yorkshire Police to a care home
(32:41):
staff member, where it is that I was high risk
of say and that I was most likely actively being
expo and that there was a common acceptance that I
was actively being I said, then in the next me,
it is not to report me missing anymore unless I
(33:04):
have a change in behavior or they see me actively
being dragged into a car.
Speaker 6 (33:10):
You know, this just absolutely disgusts me.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
It really does like hearing and you as a child
yourself that they weren't doing jobs to protect you.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
There's so much more that was said in them finals
as well.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
There was the seven instances where I was actually reported
the irp S, and one of them I was fourteen
and I've been spiked and I'd actually had a bit
and they had like vomit on in the air and
the men panic to bit. But they wouldn't take me
to the hospital and staid they dropped me back off
at the children's for.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
When I went in, the staff went started going me
and said, look, I can't be bother. This was on
my fourteenth birthday. I said, I can't bother.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I've been spiked, and they called me an attention see
for and then the.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Other girl I always said, no, she has she had
a fit.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
And then I went into my room and they literally
left me for three days.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
They didn't come and check on me.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
The only time they did was when they came up
the police officer to try and arrest me for a
criminal damage I've done where I broke in the mirror
in my bedroom the week before and the police officer
I couldn't move off the better because don't leave my
head up and I was still covering vomits and the
police officer said, I can't arrest her while she's in
that condition. You need to get some medical help. And
the staff member went, or, don't worry about it. She's
(34:30):
just an attention see, because she knows what she's doing.
And they left me even longer. So for three days,
I didn't drink, I didn't eat, I didn't even go
to the toilet.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
I did not move out that bet. I could not
get up, I could not stay awake or anything.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Then when I did finally get up and managed to
clean myself and go down, says it's week. They said, oh,
you finally decided to grace us with your presence. They
never once sought me medical attention in that time. And
then another time, when I was sixteen, I'd been violently
yessays and I'd gone back to the children's home and
(35:06):
I had blood down my legs, booising around my neck,
around my arms, you know, being pins and stuff. And
it's happened in a bathtub and I had for the
outlet fight the overflowed bit. I had a bruise in
the shape of that on my back. And I walked
in and I was crying, and they said, what's wrong?
I said, I think I've been RPD and they went, oh, God,
(35:31):
do you want us to ring the police? And in
that moment I was absolutely traumatized. I said no, I
just want to be by myself and I ran off
up to my bedroom. But they never ran the police.
They never reported it, and they've got like a safeguard
in juty, but yet they decided not.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
To report this. That's when I was covered.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
In and in a really bad way. I actually kept
them clothes in a carrier bag in the wardrobe twelve
months afterwards. All it would have taken was for the
police to knock on the door and then to bad everything.
And they never reported it. But I love such faith
(36:09):
in the services because of the way they treat me
and the way they'd responded to me that I didn't
want to be the one to reach out to them.
I wanted someone to take it out of my hands
and do it themselves, but they wouldn't. They just blamed me.
In the end, up, I just bent the clothes. I
gave up as far stood stating a bent and that
were the last time that I ever thought about the
(36:32):
clothes at that point. And then obviously when they started
the investigation was being came flooding back because they didn't
start the investigation either because they wanted to. I had
to expose them to the media for them to do it.
But the man that did that, he actually got away
with it because I couldn't prove all of the evidence
either though it were documented, because see the incident was documented,
(36:54):
it was wrote in my care records that this had happened.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
It was just never reported to their place.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
But because of the length of time, I couldn't idea
the man, I couldn't idea the street. I couldn't idea
enough of it to get a conviction. So because they
never reported it back then, he contely got away with it.
And then, like to say, it is for years this continued.
I got arrested instead of my perpetrators many times, and
(37:22):
then by the end of it, in twenty thirteen, the
police turned up at my house and they said another
young girl would come forward and they wanted my evidence.
So I told him everything. And this wasn't the first time.
I'd already disclosed seven times, at least while I was
(37:43):
in the children's ms, anything like that happening.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I've disclosed it like seven times, but.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I disposed it all again and they said, right, we're
going to come and take an official statement and show
you some pictures. And then they started idnowing my calls,
would not get back in contact with me, and I
got really annoyed because they brought everything back up from
it and then just left me again.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
That was about that time. About six months.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
After that, the Rover Room scandal brought and I said
straight away, I said, it's not just Roberin, it's grafit.
But we look into it, they're just too busy covering
it over. So I contacted the BBC and I gave
them my Cay records where it had been documenting it
since two thousand and eight when I was fourteen, and
(38:30):
it documented it from them. They posted it and the
next day the police decided to do an investigation. The
investigation investigations five years, and then in twenty nineteen nine
men were convicted for twenty two offenses and got sentences
that told of dred and thirty two and a half
(38:50):
year between them, and then I had a serious case
review and that was published in twenty twenty one that
said that all services to protect me, that they I
didn't treat me as they would have done any of
the adult or any other child, and obviously the fact
that I'd lost my daughter and that it has caused
(39:10):
life long and not just for me but for my children.
Now then I'd got targeted by social services again when
I started speaking out in the media because I waved
my nomininity in two and nineteen, so as that is
saying that I was struggling with mental health problems because
I've not had for everything, that I would not be
(39:31):
emotionally capable of looking after my children because of what
has happened to me. Their worish statement was that I
blamed them for what had happened to me and where
my life sip. But to keep my children, I had
to take responsibility for what has happened to me and
where my lives sip.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
They took my children into postic cares.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I was fifty four a week while I had to
prove because they also will said that I was emotionally
disregulated and suffering with delusions by thinking they'd exposed me
a harm that they did not, and all of this
like another layer of bribery and manipulation.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
To try and shut me up.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I thought it's for fifty five a week and then
two weeks before we were going into court for a
contested hearing, I've got a phone call.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Then you can go pick children now and they can
come home.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
And they came home in October twenty and twenty feet
and since then I've said nothing.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Sheal savties. They've left me alone.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
But rather than the silence men, it made me speak
even louder then because I just thought, I'm not letting
them like I'm not easily manipulated, but many of the
survivors are extremely vulnerable and if their experience is the
same thing, they would not be able.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
To fight against it like I did. And they've being
saled once being let down, had to live the life
so la trauma.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And then just as the rebuilding will come and do
something like this again and take what like what the
bill off of them again.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
It's just it's so unfair.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
So I started speaking even more then and then I've
been on every single mainstream needs near every single newspaper,
being on live TV. I've done test releases with Chemi
bas and not on the Tory Party. I've done podcasts
at social media. I've met with Jess Phillips in the
home office. I've met baroness Casey, who did the report
(41:19):
which has issued led to the issue of national inquiry.
I actually told Jess Phillips in a meeting a few
weeks before the report was released, power the senor for
an inquiry should go. And the report that baroness Casey
released was exactly the same as what I've said. So
I have been invited to join the Home Office Committee
(41:40):
Victim Years on Committee, but I don't agree with decisions
the governments are making. At the moments, I've decided I
don't want to. I don't want to be involved and
not be able to speak up against things that I
don't agree with, or people think that I'm involved in
decisions that I don't agree with. So instead me and
another survivor and the sister of another survivors for as previous,
(42:03):
we've decided to start.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
The process of ominisity.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
I see so all the failings that we experience because
my kids is that unique, it is common. It happened
to storm many and maybe if exactly the same things
as well. So we've started working on up ninity.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
I see. So we can.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Offer these historical victims and the prevent ones all the
support and help that we never got and that we needed.
Rather than be involved in something where I'm shyns and
the making decisions that I don't agree with, I want
to be able to actively help and make it just
instidit change people's lives.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
I think it's just, you know, it's just fabulous that
you're actually continuing to advocate and fight for people that
were in your situation after everything you've been through, and
you know, to be honest.
Speaker 6 (42:58):
With you, like these surfaces, the social surfaces.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And the people that were involved in this need to
take accountability. They need to be held responsible because just
as if not more responsible for what has actually happened,
because they have allowed you to be in a situation
where it's been ongoing for such a long period of time,
(43:24):
you've lost your childhood.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Well, this is it so like the first incident that
they'd documented, where they had said it was the CT
was in two thousand and eight and I'd.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
Only been.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I said, by two men at that point, whereas they
did nothing and they didn't intervene, and by the time
I was seventeen, I'd been sed by over fifty men.
They could have stopped it at two and instead I
had to go through over fifty other men doing it
meth and most of them did it more than once.
(44:01):
Like so for me, that first two that happened they're
not responsible for because they didn't know. But once they
highlighted it after the first two, everyone that happened after
them they are responsible.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
For, because the social workers knew, the care one knew,
and the.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Police knew from that point, and they knew every single
time it happened after that.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
And like I said, that's probably hundreds of physical a pes.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Essays by over fifty men that they could have stopped,
and they didn't. They actually made me more vulnerable to
it because once they took my daughters from them, I
completely gave up hope. I didn't think I'd ever be
able to get out of it. I actually started trying
to unlive themselves really regularly because I didn't see any
other way out. I felt completely alone. There were no one,
(44:53):
no one there, and I didn't know I was going
to get out. The men used to tell me I
had nice legs. I think I must have developed like
a bit of psychosis from the trauma, and they actually
took a sharp article and mutilated my legs thinking they
might leave me alone. Then and it is classic style
(45:13):
mutilation on the records, and that they like I did
that when I was about sixteen seventeen, and the scars
are still extremely noticeable now when I'm thirty two. Like,
it was really severe and my attendance popped out from
inside my legs, and the dots had to bring me
down and push attendants and stuff back inside the cups
and stuff.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
And because they were.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
So wide because it's stitching, they had to pack them
and just bound into them. So it led to like
severe trauma to the point where, yeah, I genuinely didn't
think I would ever get away with meet. My grandma
actually had my funeral planned out because she didn't think
(45:53):
i'd make it past eighteen.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
My grandma blessed her. She passed away last year.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
From Alzheimer's, but she used to come and rescue me
from the mid those fields.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Different cities, all sorts.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
I don't think she understood exactly what happened this year,
so going on that we're wrong, but she didn't understand,
but she come and saved me at three five o'clock
in the morning and all sorts, and she was the
only person I did ave. And then when it came
to the trial. I wasn't allowed to speak to her
because she would given evidence and we used to speak
every day, and I wasn't allowed to speak to her
(46:27):
for every year, and then by the time the trial
come around, it turned out she developed Alzheimers in that
year and deterate is really quick, so by the time
the child was done and she couldn't even really remember
who I was. I never got to know that I
stood up and that the men got done, and that
I'd rebuilt my life and that I were doing okay.
(46:50):
So she never got to see that part, which breaks
my heart because she was my biggest part.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
With my grandma.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us, Fiona.
Is there anything you want to leave any any girls,
any anyone that was ever in the situation or is
currently possibly going through a situation?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Really, I really want anyone that's whether it's historical, whether
it's e evently going on to reach out for help,
to whist place its sauce to be able to get
them help and the support to help them rebuild.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
We have a Facebook page called Healing Heart's Life after cs.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Within the process of getting registered as a CIC will
proper take for another eight week and we're in the
process to building a website, but anyone can reach us
on Healing Hearts in this Facebook page and we're more
than happy to advocate as give advice. Supart, we have
given out some coping mechanism selves care hampers as well
(47:52):
to our victims and the wellment to help them develop
coping mechanisms in farm Room Books Prices.
Speaker 4 (48:00):
I think speaking out is important and.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Being able to take back contro all of your life
because while you're silent and you're not speaking out, they've
always got that control over your life and you never
know who else they're doing it too, and the impact
it has on you mentally, physically, emotionally, your lifestyle choices
that you don't find. These survives end up making the
(48:25):
wrong relationship twice. That's been exposed to predators over and
over again because taking the sense of the vulnerabilities and
the target them and because it's such a lack of support,
they don't get a chance to get over that.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
So if anyone does need the help, please reach out
for it.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
And we're also trying to really push doing education within
public sectors and schools, children's forms and you've sent us
stuff like that, so we can start educating from year
seven onwards, trying to teach the children the warning signs.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
We are gonna do some.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
More videos on our Facebook page to into the children
talking about the warning signs, what to look out for
that hopefully their parents can use to be able to
show their children if they neat. I am supporting current
victims as well as historical ones. We know this issue
has not gone away, and we also still know that
(49:26):
the services are still not dealing with it appropriately. They
they are better than they used to be, but then
they're not. They're not right still. So we do understand,
and we've already taught the system and we've fought against
it and spoken about so we know how to fight
for them as well, and we we have our.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Hearts in it. So yeah, do anyone that needs the help,
please do reach out.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
Thank you so much Fiona for sharing with us today
and for our listens. I'll be adding the link to
Fiona's Facebook group with this podcast.
Speaker 6 (50:05):
Across all platforms once live.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
As she said, please do reach out if you're suffering
anything similar or know of someone who is. Thank you
so much for today, Fiona, and until next time, Guys
take carestttttttttttttttts
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