What time is The Betrayed Girls on BBC One, what was the Rochdale child sex abuse scandal and what is the documentary about?
THE Rochdale sex abuse scandal shocked Britain after nine men were found guilty of grooming, raping, and sex trafficking teenage girls.
Following the acclaimed drama, Three Girls, the BBC have made The Betrayed Girls – a one-off documentary explaining more about this unsettling true life story in the Greater Manchester town.
What is The Betrayed Girls and when is it on?
The Betrayed Girls is a forthcoming BBC One documentary about the Rochdale child sex abuse ring.
The documentary will feature interviews with individuals from the case, including some of the victims, manager of the Rochdale Crisis Intervention Team Sara Rowbotham, former Detective Constable Maggie Oliver and Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal.
The documentary will air today (Monday July 3) at 8.30pm on BBC One and will have a run time of 90 minutes. It will be narrated by Steven Mackintosh, an actor who has appeared in Luther and also Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
What was the Rochdale child sex abuse ring?
The exposure of the grooming, sexual assault and trafficking of young girls in Rochdale was made public in 2012.
The Guardian reports how it resulted in the conviction of nine men for offences including rape on girls as young as 13 between 2005 and 2008.
Sexual health worker Sara Rowbotham spent years trying to get police, the council and social workers to take the grooming seriously.
When the probe was eventually resumed and the gang was jailed police, Crown prosecutors and Rochdale Council were forced to apologise for their failings.
The men – aged between 24 and 59- preyed on teen girls plying them with booze and drugs in the Heywood area of Rochdale.
It eventually resulted in the conviction of nine men for serious sexual offences, including rape and human trafficking, inflicted on girls as young as 13 between 2005 and 2008.
The Rochdale Safeguarding Children Board highlighted failures by 17 agencies who were meant to protect the children.
Who were the grooming gang?
Nine men were jailed for their part in the child sexual exploitation ring, the BBC reported in 2012.
Judge Gerald Clifton said at the time that the men – eight of Pakistani origin and one from Afghanistan – treated the girls “as though they were worthless and beyond respect”.
Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of a group of men who preyed on girls, was jailed for 22 years after being convicted of a string of offences including rape in 2012.
Four members of the grooming gang – including ringleader Ahmed – now face deportation to Pakistan.
The other three are Adil Khan, Qari Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz.
Khan, Rauf and Aziz were convicted of conspiracy and trafficking for sexual exploitation charges.
In December 2013 a further five men were jailed after an investigation into the sexual abuse of a girl was reopened following the exposure of police failings.
The victim told police in 2008 Freddie Kendakumana raped her but he was not charged until October 2012.
In 2015 three men were sentenced for a string of child sexual offences that took place in Rochdale.
Two girls aged 13 and 15 and a 13-year-old boy were groomed by the three men between September and October 2014 after repeatedly going missing from care.
How many victims were there?
Police identified and interviewed 47 young girls who were potential victims of the gang in 2012.
It led to police forces across the country changing the way that they deal with missing people.
The Times first revealed the issue of Asian sex gangs targeting girls after an investigation in Rotherham.
It led to an inquiry which found that at least 1,400 children had been exploited in that town.
A report by the Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children Board painted a picture of girls as young as 10 being targeted for sexual abuse.
Twelve council workers came under investigation for failures in relation to the case, and both the police and Crown Prosecution Service were forced to apologise for missing a chance to stop the gang in 2008.
Who is Sara Rowbotham?
Sara Rowbotham worked as Rochdale Crisis Intervention Team co-ordinator from 2004 to 2014.
The front-line sexual health worker was tasked with identifying young people vulnerable to sex exploitation.
Ms Rowbotham claimed she repeatedly raised concerns about dozens of young girls at risk in Rochdale, but was ignored by her managers, the police and other agencies.
She gave damning evidence at the MP-led inquiry into the child sex ring in 2012 telling the inquiry that Rochdale council’s social services team for children missed 181 chances to stop young girls being groomed for sex.
She became depressed and ill through the stress of fighting to get her voice heard and was made redundant from her senior role in the team in 2014.
Ms Rowbotham is now a Labour councillor for Rochdale Borough Council and is starting her life again after years of working on stressful cases.
She appeared on Channel 4’s First Dates looking for love, and told her date she is looking forward; “[To being] able to have nice times and not be so stressed or worried or anxious or angry. To be carefree.”
Who is Margaret Oliver?
Margaret Oliver is a former detective constable in Greater Manchester Police (GMP).
The mum-of-four was commended for her work during murder and gang crime inquiries.
Oliver worked on sex abuse investigations in 2004 and 2010.
She worked on a small team assigned to Operation Augusta.
It was looking at allegations about the grooming of white girls in the northwest of England by Pakistani men in 2004.
It found 26 teenage girls thought to have had underage sex and a list of 208 potential suspects was drawn up.
When Oliver returned to work following a family bereavement she found the inquiry had been abandoned.
Six years later she joined Operation Span which looked into organised grooming in the Heywood district of Rochdale after a 2008 inquiry failed.
Span secured the convictions of nine men at Liverpool crown court in May 2012.
Why did Margaret Oliver resign?
She quit the force claiming hundreds of cases of alleged abuse were mishandled or ignored by GMP.
Oliver warned that many offenders were still walking the streets despite being known to police.
It is said police first became aware of allegations about the grooming of white girls in the area by Pakistani men in 2004.
GMP admitted there were “aspects of that [the 2004] investigation that may not be up to today’s standards”.
They also admitted errors were made in the 2008-9 inquiry.
The CPS apologised for failing to treat another victim as a credible witness in 2008.
Former Det Con Oliver spent four months getting to know two girls and encouraging them to give evidence to the police.
When she learned the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had decided not to call one as a witness, she says she felt ashamed of her part in the process.
Oliver said: “We betrayed the trust of those girls and it made me ashamed to be a police officer.”
But Greater Manchester police rejected Oliver’s criticism of Span, describing any suggestion that officers were lazy or apathetic as “grossly inaccurate”.
Who is Nazir Afzal? What’s his background?
Nazir Afzal was born in 1962 and is one of seven children, growing up in Birmingham.
Afzal qualified as a solicitor and initially worked in private practice after studying law in Birmingham.
He joined the Crown Prosecution Service in 1991 and went on to lead several high-profile prosecutions, including ex-broadcaster Stuart Hall’s trial.
In 2003 he was appointed as Sector Director for CPS West London after working in frontline management roles.
Afzal also had a national role as CPS Director for Communities.
He took up the post of the head of the Crown Prosecution Service for the north west in 2011 and spent 25 years with the CPS.
In the role he led about 700 lawyers, legal staff, and administrators and was responsible for all criminal prosecutions across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Cumbria.
He reversed a CPS decision taken two years earlier not to prosecute and in 2012 nine men who ran the ring were jailed for a string of offences.
He is credited with work to tackle honour-based violence and forced marriage.
Nazir was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours List in 2005.
The Guardian reports that following Afzal’s role in the Rochdale grooming case, Keir Starmer, the then director of public prosecutions, appointed him to head a new national network of specialist prosecutors for child abuse and sexual exploitation.
What is Three Girls?
Three Girls is a BBC drama that tells the story of three of the victims of the child sex grooming ring that was active in Rochdale between 2008 and 2012.
The series, which was made in full co-operation of the people involved in the case, aimed to tell the victims’ stories and first aired on BBC One in May 2017.
The drama showed how the victims were failed by authorities directly responsible for their protection and how the abuse impacted on their lives.
