00:01:13.840And this is another thing that those in positions of authority like to say, that, you know, mistakes were made and lessons were learned, but this isn't happening anymore.
00:01:22.840Well, as recently as 2020, in England and Wales alone, there was hundreds, over 700 reports of alleged child sexual exploitation.
00:01:32.780By refusing to let myself become all consumed and become prey to what was done to me, I can defy all of those expectations for me.
00:01:46.560I can, it's kind of like giving the middle finger and saying, you tried everything you could to break me and I still rose up.
00:03:20.200Legally, I was under social services, you know, sofa staff from for about 16 months, if I'm remembering rightly, you know, moving from sleeping bags to sofas every night, sitting in McDonald's and nursing a cup of coffee until 6 a.m.
00:03:37.500But I, I, I've always been on Twitter, and I wrote a tweet in August 2020 about the cancellation of exams and the impact it would have on disadvantaged students, the way that young people were being judged based on their postcode rather than their potential.
00:03:53.080And that was picked up by a spectator journalist who asked if I'd be interested in writing a piece for, for the paper, for the publication.
00:04:01.860And from there, it sort of snowballed.
00:04:05.900Well, you've got an astonishing CV for someone who's 20 years old.
00:04:08.960So very, very impressive and kudos to you.
00:04:11.280And one of the things you didn't mention is one of the, the big things that I think also propelled your sort of role as a, as a commentator was your commentary on the grooming gangs and all of that, because it's something that you were personally affected by as well.
00:04:26.140So as I said, I'm, I'm, I grew up in Telford in the West Midlands, which is some of your, your viewers, I'm sure will be aware is one of the, the key towns, I suppose, in the national child sexual exploitation scandal.
00:04:38.960Over 1,000 girls fell victim to organized grooming gangs in, in Telford over a course of, of around 30 years.
00:04:46.960I personally was groomed and abused for nearly a decade from the ages of five to about 14.
00:04:54.720I didn't come forward to, to anyone with the abuse I experienced until I was 16.
00:05:01.120I then went through the, the justice system was sort of chewed up and spat back out as many young girls are.
00:05:08.020I remember, I'll never forget being told by a social worker, if you were physically abused, why were there no bruises?
00:05:14.660That's a, that's a comment that really stuck with me.
00:05:17.800And I think when, for a long time, I wasn't aware that there were other girls in my position.
00:05:23.420There were other girls that had been sexually abused, that had been groomed, that had, had had such a horrendous experience.
00:05:31.020And so when everything began, began to come out in, in 2018, 2019 on the grooming and scandal on the, the, the culture of exploitation, ignorance and, and silence in towns like Telford, it struck home for me.
00:05:51.320And I first spoke about my story and my experience in 2020.
00:05:57.000That's when I went public with it, I suppose.
00:05:59.440And I have worked my hardest to bring awareness to the issue, to amplify survivors' voices and to just really keep the conversation in, in the, the media attention.
00:06:17.040Because so many girls like me have been disenfranchised and marginalized and silenced by those in power.
00:06:25.900So without, without, without people willing, they're willing to speak up, whether it's anonymously or, or showing their faces, I waived my right to anonymity.
00:06:39.400Perpetrators, groomers, rapists, grooming gangs, they're going to be able to, to continue to thrive and continue to groom, rape, abuse, exploit other little girls.
00:06:49.180So that's, that's why I, I suppose I chose to speak out.
00:06:52.960Yeah. And, uh, we've had, uh, a survivor of the grooming gangs on the show, Dr. Ella Hill.
00:06:58.340I don't know if you're familiar with her, if you saw that interview, but she was anonymized.
00:07:02.320And so, um, you're very courageous to talk about it in public the way that you do.
00:07:07.740And I'm curious because one of the things I've discovered after we published that interview, I contacted every journalist I could.
00:07:16.580And I went, look, watch this interview. Why don't you write something about this?
00:07:19.540And they're just, they were not interested. Why do you think that is?
00:07:24.560It's the age old, the age old issue of cultural sensitivity. I would say people find it a lot easier to ignore victims than they do to, to go after the perpetrators.
00:07:36.420We saw it with local councils, with social services, with the police, with the Crown Prosecution Service, with mainstream media, with the government, the list goes on.
00:07:45.980Those in positions of power and authority don't want to have this conversation because it exposes their own failings.
00:07:53.980It exposes the culture of ignorance and silence and victim blaming that was perpetrated over decades.
00:08:00.280You know, young girls have been trying to speak out. This isn't something new.
00:08:05.780This isn't a new occurrence of all of a sudden victims and survivors coming out of the woodworks and wanting to share their stories.
00:08:13.960No, they went to sexual health clinics. They went to the police.
00:08:17.120They went to their teachers, their social workers, and they were ignored at every turn because they were viewed as second class victims.
00:08:24.300And those in positions of authority were scared about the implications of accusing, in the case of grooming gangs, particularly predominantly Pakistani men, of being rapists and of raping predominantly white working class girls.
00:08:42.540It's far easier to pivot the conversation away from victims and survivors because they are traditionally disenfranchised.
00:08:49.300disenfranchised. They don't come from the sort of background that has, they don't have support.
00:08:55.480They don't have people that are going to fight for them, that are going to stand up for them.
00:08:58.280They aren't privileged or affluent in any sort of way.
00:09:03.180And so their only hope, you know, the legal system and social services and social care.
00:09:11.040And if they don't listen, how are the media going to be expected to pick it up?
00:09:16.140Because it comes down to them being treated as second class victims, I think.
00:09:22.140And they were treated as second class. I wouldn't even say second class.
00:09:25.720I'd say eighth class because some of the language used about these girls was disgusting.
00:09:30.500I think the term white slags was used as...
00:09:33.100Yes, that was used in Telford quite a lot.
00:09:36.440And the Crowther report, which was the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Telford,
00:09:43.560it was revealed that police and local authorities referred to the girls as packy shaggers,
00:26:51.120And child sexual exploitation, again, is grooming forms a part of that.
00:26:55.100Um, and I've always, I've always clarified.
00:26:58.520So I was, I was a victim of child sexual abuse and grooming in, in Telford.
00:27:04.200I was abused and, and, um, and groomed for nearly a decade by successive men.
00:27:11.000I, myself, wasn't a victim of the, the particular type of, of child sexual exploitation that many of, that many fellow survivors were.
00:27:20.480But my experience of the failings of the police and local authorities and those in positions of power to address exploitation and grooming and, and to, to bring justice in my case was identical to, to, uh, to many of, of my fellow survivors.
00:27:39.520And so that's, I suppose that's why, and my experience of the failings in Telford to, to, to, to give little girls justice and protect little girls from abuse was what inspired me to, to come forward, I suppose.
00:27:55.080And, and, and Samantha, uh, one of the things I find so incredible about everything you've been able to do with your life is you've overcome these awful experiences.
00:28:05.140And it's something I, we always think about is like everyone experiences some form of, you know, adversity and trauma and whatever.
00:28:11.420In your case, obviously at a much worse and extensive level.
00:28:15.220And yet here you are, you're 20 years old, you've run an MPs campaign at the age of 17, you're on TV, you're writing columns.
00:28:23.440How have you been able to overcome all this?
00:28:25.520How have you been able to deal with the challenges that you faced?
00:28:30.600I wasn't, I wasn't like I am now when I was, you know, 16, 17 years old.
00:28:36.740I, I wasn't like you are now when you were 16, 17 and I didn't go through child sexual abuse.
00:28:43.040I, um, you see, I, I, I had a lot of anger.
00:28:48.440I had a lot of fear, a lot of resentment, a lot of shame.
00:28:51.500And I, when I was younger, when I first came forward about the abuse that I suffered, I was a scared little girl who was terrified of speaking out because I felt like I had somehow brought on myself.
00:29:08.580I, and much of this, this rhetoric was instilled in me by those in, in positions of authority.
00:29:15.240I, it took me a long time to overcome a lot of that anger and that guilt and that shame.
00:29:21.540And I still, I still struggle with those feelings on a daily basis, but the way that I, I suppose I was able to come out the other side and now speak about my,
00:29:33.200my story as I do is I, I, and this sounds very strange.
00:29:40.020I compartmentalize it in the way of what I experienced was awful.
00:29:45.440It was, it was, it will, it will stay with me for the rest of my life.
00:29:49.580But if by speaking out about it and by using my pain and my trauma and, and airing it out and, and exposing these injustices,
00:30:00.420if I can use my experience to enforce change and to help even just one little girl see that you can get through it and that you can survive,
00:30:12.060you can become stronger, you can be successful, then it will make it all worth it.
00:30:17.180You know, everything that I have done since speaking out about, about my experiences is in spite of what was done to me.
00:30:29.140I think that the, the best kind of revenge is success.
00:30:32.520And by not allowing my experience to define me, not by not allowing, and I hate the, I hate the term victim.
00:30:41.700I don't like to think of myself as a victim, even though I was victimized.
00:30:46.380I think that by refusing to let myself become all consumed and become prey to what was done to me, I can, I can, I defy all of those expectations for me.
00:31:04.700I can, it's kind of like giving the middle finger and saying, you tried everything you could to break me and I still rose up again.
00:31:26.100It's a, it's a very, very complicated system.
00:31:29.640I would say the justice system in the UK and England and Wales specifically.
00:31:33.860So when I first went to the police about what I experienced, I was assigned an ISVA, which is an independent sexual violence advisor.
00:31:42.060And I was referred for sexual abuse therapy through an independent charity that worked with the police.
00:31:48.500I was also, because I was 16, I was shipped to a child psychologist and a child psychiatrist to see if there was anything underlying in, in my own psychological makeup, I suppose, that would.
00:32:01.080And, and it was phrased to me as so that they knew how to support me best.
00:32:04.820But I, I came to, to realize that it was partly an, an interrogation and a, a means of finding out if there was anything underlying mentally that would make it more difficult for me to be believed in court.
00:32:18.780And we've seen this in, in, in, in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford of victims and survivors who had underlying mental health difficulties or who had behavioral difficulties or whatever it was, vulnerabilities that they were told that there, they wouldn't be a suitable, suitable witnessing court.
00:32:38.060And that it wasn't a good idea to proceed with the case because they don't know how they would play in front of a jury.
00:32:43.620So I, I had all of these different services around me.
00:32:48.820Am I right in thinking, it doesn't sound like they were massively helpful at this point.
00:32:53.380So my, my independent sexual violence advisor, my ISVA, I will say was absolutely brilliant.
00:32:58.840She was, it genuinely felt as though she was on my side, but another, and this is something about the, this is something internal about the justice system that people might not know.
00:33:06.960When it comes to sexual abuse therapy, one of the big things when you're, when you have a case that's ongoing is any therapy that you receive, you're not actually allowed to talk about what happened to you in specific detail.
00:33:25.320You can't really, you can't address the actual abuse itself at all, because if you do, then the, and it did come to court,
00:33:35.200then your private notes, your, your therapy sessions could be, um, called upon as evidence in, in court.
00:33:43.640And so basically your private, your medical privacy would be compromised if you discussed the particulars of your case during therapy while the case was ongoing.
00:33:53.760And as, as many, many survivors will know, it's a very long process to get to court.
00:34:01.220I mean, mine was, my case was dropped, no further action because the CPA, the CPS believes that there wasn't a realistic prospect of conviction due to it being a historic case.
00:34:12.020I, the process took nearly two years for me to not even reach court.
00:34:17.720So that was two years where I was receiving some sort of support, but I wasn't actually able to address any, any of the trauma and the abuse that I experienced.
00:34:25.720It was sort of the way that it was described was keeping the, keeping you ticking along until you can actually access the full package of therapy, which was, so there were two types of therapy.
00:34:37.080There was the pre-trial therapy, and then there was the, the, the post police involvement therapy, which was the full Monty where you could discuss everything and really get the help that, that, that many victims and survivors need as, as I needed.
00:34:52.280So for two years, I was in this sort of purgatory where I was receiving support to essentially stop myself from spiraling into, into a depressive episode or, or having a full on mental breakdown during this very tumultuous period of police investigations and evidence gathering.
00:35:13.760And, uh, you know, uh, you know, going, uh, you know, going back and forth to the CPS and my, and my, uh, the police sergeant that was in charge of my case, but I, I wasn't able to, to really address any of the, the deep rooted issues.
00:35:29.080And so that's something that many people don't know, you know, while, while this very long laborious court, uh, court proceeding is taking place, victims and survivors aren't actually able to get the support they need in the way they need it in many cases.
00:35:42.640Sam, listening to your story, the one thing that, I mean, there are many things that I find very upsetting.
00:35:49.420Uh, someone who used to teach and used to teach vulnerable kids because they used to teach in very, very deprived areas.
00:35:55.140I know for a fact that gangs, that these types of individuals, they target the vulnerable.
00:36:01.620They target the, the girls or the boys who don't come from stable family backgrounds, the ones who struggle at school, the ones who are for whatever,
00:36:12.640reason, vulnerable, vulnerable or labeled as difficult.
00:36:15.300And the fact that these victims won't get their day in court because they won't, in inverted commas, play well in front of a jury, I find utterly disgusting.
00:36:26.300Absolutely. I, I, and this is, this is what I, this is the point that I was getting to earlier,
00:36:31.420where, uh, victims and survivors have every possible immutable characteristic exploited and, and turned against them when they try and seek justice for the abuse they suffered.
00:36:44.200Many, as you said, many victims of this particular type of crime, and it isn't just criminal, sexual exploitation, it's criminal exploitation of children as well,
00:36:53.200come from disadvantaged backgrounds, whether they, you know, in, in, in the case of, of child sexual exploitation, many of the victims in Telford, not all of them,
00:37:01.320because any child can be abused, any child can be exploited, anyone can fall victim to this sort of, this sort of crime.
00:37:07.980And I don't want to denigrate the experiences of any survivors, but many survivors were already known to social services, they were already in care,
00:37:16.560they had difficult family backgrounds, their parents were, you know, alcoholics or addicted to drugs or absent or whatever it is.
00:37:24.100Many of the, many of the survivors and victims in, in cases like in towns and cities like Telford were from a disadvantaged or vulnerable background.
00:37:34.080And so it begs the question, with all of these services that are supposed to be around supporting children, supporting these kinds of children,
00:37:40.640how did everyone seem to, to fail to see the signs or fail to take action to protect them?
00:37:47.400In, in the case of social services, there was, as I said, in, in Telford, for example, a massive failing, failure to, to not notice the signs, but to act on them.
00:37:58.300Because it was, you know, there were, there were children that were going to sexual health clinics for the morning after pill every single week.
00:38:03.400There were children as young as 13 or 14 that were having abortions, who told the, the work, their social workers,
00:38:09.020oh, I've got a boyfriend who's 27 or, or, or whatever.
00:38:12.940Oh, this is happening. This is happening to me. This is what I was doing. This is where I was.
00:38:16.840And yet no, no further action was taken.
00:38:19.920I think that it, it really speaks to, and the, the point that I was making earlier as well about the justice system being more than misogynistic.
00:38:30.960It isn't just that many of these victims were little girls.
00:38:35.160It's that they were from backgrounds that were less than ideal.
00:38:38.240They didn't fit the cocky cutter profile of the perfect victim.
00:38:41.500They weren't going to be able to, and this is something that I always get.
00:38:45.860I get a lot of people on Twitter that especially that say, it's always Twitter, isn't it?
00:38:51.520The armchair experts themselves that say, oh, you don't sound like someone that would have been a victim of, of grooming or sexual abuse.
00:38:58.960Oh, you don't look like someone that would have, that would have been a victim.
00:39:02.240And it, it just creates this paradox where any, any child who isn't the, the perfect victim, who doesn't speak well, come from an affluent family, play well in front of a jury, who doesn't tick the boxes of what the, the Crown Prosecution Service is looking for in, in someone that will play well in court.
00:39:22.120It, it, it suggests that they are somehow less deserving of justice and less deserving of support.
00:39:28.480And if, if they, if in my, as in my case, you do have, have a, a posh accent, as I've been told, or you, you went to, to a good school, you don't fit the typical victim profile on the other side of things, people somehow believe that, oh, you couldn't possibly have experienced this.
00:39:44.720This isn't, you know, you, are you sure that this happened?
00:39:47.920There's, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't, damned if you're disadvantaged and damned if you're not.
00:39:52.920But in the case of child sexual exploitation in particular, you're right that the, that the majority of these girls were white, working class, disadvantaged from, from vulnerable backgrounds and predators, the, those that, that took advantage of them, preyed on their vulnerability and were able to exploit them, groom them, abuse them, rape them, because there was no one around them that was willing to, to protect them.
00:40:22.920And Samantha, coming back to, you mentioned the, the, after the, the case and investigation and the case doesn't go to court, you get this full Monty therapy.
00:40:32.760Was that useful? Was, did that help you in your recovery from everything?
00:40:37.360I think it was a mixture. I'll be a hundred percent honest and say that.
00:40:41.240So I, by the time my case was dropped, I had just aged out of the system.
00:41:00.800There's, there's no, there's no, there was no continuation of support for me from child services.
00:41:06.500And during the, obviously during the pandemic, this was exacerbated in the fact that, you know, you weren't able to really see, see your workers face to face and so on.
00:41:15.540I received a certain amount of support and, and therapeutic intervention, a little bit of the full Monty, but I, I'll be fully honest and say that at the time that I was receiving this, this therapy, I wasn't ready to engage.
00:41:32.600I wasn't at the point where I was ready enough to, I think part of it was, was because I had spent two years in this limbo of, of living through this experience every day, but not being able to talk about, not about it, not being able to address it.
00:41:45.200And so by the time that I was able to, to access this full service, I suppose, of therapy, I was scared.
00:42:50.260I take sleeping tablets most nights to, to keep myself going.
00:42:54.300I have brilliant, wonderful support systems now that I didn't have when I was younger.
00:43:01.000You know, my, and I'll always say I'm, although everything that happened to me was, was awful and horrible.
00:43:07.040I was very, very lucky to go to a wonderful school.
00:43:10.060I went to a, to a little grammar school in, in the middle of the Shropshire countryside that took two, that took over two hours to get to in the morning.
00:43:18.680It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, but I, you know, when I was homeless, when I was sofa surfing, my head of year, who I will always regard as someone that saved my life and someone that I'm, she's my, she's my phone background.
00:43:31.280Actually, she's on my lock screen, a photo of me and her, um, she did my laundry for me.
00:43:36.400She let me keep my bags, keep my clothes in her office when I, when I didn't, when I didn't, you know, I wasn't able to carry them around with me every night.
00:43:44.780She made sure that I could shower at school when I didn't have access to a shower.
00:43:47.700She ensured that I had at least one hot meal a day, every day, bought me toiletries and a towel and things like that.
00:43:54.720Now at the stage that I'm at in, in my life at the moment, my MP, my local MP, the MP for Telford, Lucy Allen, she helped me like absolutely no one else.
00:44:05.400And I, I, you always hear that age old stereotype of Tories don't care about anyone but themselves.
00:44:11.020And I would say that she, in my opinion, defies that stereotype.
00:44:15.420She took a chance on a 17 year old with no experience and, and a very difficult background, gave me a shot during the 2019 campaign.
00:44:26.800I ended up working for her for, for nearly two years before I went to university.
00:44:31.480She is one of the, my biggest supporters and an absolutely amazing mentor that I'm privileged to have.
00:44:39.340There are other, other amazing people that I have in my life who I can go to for advice, for support, for a shoulder to cry on.
00:44:45.420Or someone to lean on when I'm having a tough day, because not every day is like this.
00:44:49.980I spend, there are days that I, and again, getting a bit vulnerable, but there are days that I spend just curled up in bed, watching Netflix and not able to do anything.
00:44:58.020Because it's, it's, and this is something about the process that isn't off, that isn't always talked about.
00:45:03.600You know, you see polished products on, on TV with hair done and, and makeup on and a nice jumper.
00:59:58.220So yes, it isn't all men, but it's too many women, in my opinion.
01:00:01.840So we can have this conversation and say that there is a problem with a lot of men abusing women and children,
01:00:09.580but that doesn't mean that it's all men that are bad and evil and horrible.
01:00:13.860And this is where maybe I would add even a little bit more news.
01:00:16.780The fact that there are a lot of female victims does not mean that there are a lot of male perpetrators necessarily, right?
01:00:22.860It could be that a small minority of people commit a lot of those offenses or do a lot of those things over time.
01:00:28.480And I think that's maybe where part of the nuance is getting lost because I actually happen to think,
01:00:33.080and this is just my opinion, that one of the solutions to some of these problems is for men who are not like that to have more of a role in protecting women.
01:00:43.220And I think that's where my concern is sometimes when we start to tar people with the same brush,
01:00:49.660you're actually pushing good men away from being involved and being active in looking after people
01:00:54.900because that is, you know, it's not a fashionable thing to say,
01:00:58.740but that is part of men's jobs is to protect others, you know, protect children, protect women, protect partners, etc.
01:01:05.040And I think we're losing that a little bit as well.
01:01:07.140I think that you're absolutely right in the fact that men can do a lot more to help protect women and children.
01:01:15.600I think that it's the discussion that's had the topic of what can we be doing to raise our sons and our young men to be better than previous generations that came before them.
01:01:30.700You know, it starts at a very young age.
01:01:33.320And this toxic ideology and this idea that women are somehow beneath men or that they are only to be used for sexual gratification or pleasure,
01:01:43.480that somehow women are inferior, needs to be tackled and addressed.
01:01:47.780In the same way when it comes to racism, it needs to, you know, people aren't born racist.
01:01:56.880There was a case in Telford, it's an ongoing case, so I won't comment on it too much,
01:02:00.680but there was an ongoing case in Telford of a boy, a 13-year-old boy who has been arrested for, I believe it's nine counts of rape and several other sexual assaults of women aged, of women and girls aged 16 to 34.
01:02:16.680This is a 13-year-old boy that has been accused of these crimes.