Drug gangs exploited and raped us as teens, then police failed us, women tell BBC

Warning: Contains details of intersexual exploitation "It was the thrill of being with a atrocious boy." Christine was 13 when she began exchanging messages online with someone she believed was a teenage boy. At their first meeting she learned he was a grown man ten years older than herself and that he was involved with gangs and drugs. "I always knew, OK, he's about apt wounded someone, but in terms of hurting me, I didn't think it would get to that point," she says. Over the next few years he used Christine to courier drugs, subjected her to extreme sexual exploitation and beat her so violently she feared she might die. Christine is one of four women who have waived their anonymity to speak publicly in the BBC documentary Britain's Forgotten Girls about how they were targeted by criminals while still children. Their experiences, spanning 2002 to the past year, vary in detail but reveal strikingly similar patterns of abuse. All four describe being approached by boys and older men linked to drug gangs, manipulated into abusive relationships and then repeatedly sexually exploited. Each believes the authorities failed to protect them and did not take their allegations seriously. "The sexual and criminal exploitation of girls by drug gangs has long been overshadowed in national responses by the focus on sexual grooming gangs," says Connie Muttock of the Centre for Young Lives. "For grooming gangs, the primary intent is often the sexual exploitation of those girls, but the primary intent of a drug gang is to make money off selling drugs and other criminal activity," Muttock adds. Girls are recruited to generate income, she notes, but many are also sexually abused by gang members. A recent government audit of group‑based child sexual exploitation and abuse in England and Wales concluded that authorities frequently neglect these victims. The BBC understands that the issue of drug‑gang abuse will be examined in an independent inquiry established in response to the audit. Christine grew up in London before moving to Coventry with her mother after her parents' divorce. She said she felt disoriented and alone in her new surroundings. "In school, everybody already had their relationship groups because of how late I'd moved in," she says. "I didn't really feel like I had friends." Then the messages began. "We'd be texting through the night," she says. Christine claimed to be 16 in her texts. When she finally met the man, she admitted she was 13, but he told her that age did not matter. "He was like, 'that doesn't change anything. I still want to be with you.' And that's when we started, like, quotation unquote, going out." The thrill of feeling wanted also drew Annie, from south‑east London, into a gang's grasp. At first she said she "felt rather in awe, rather excited to have the attention" of three older boys who wanted to befriend her, even though she knew they were involved in drugs. For both Christine and Annie, what began as attention, affection or a relationship gradually turned into coercion and exploitation.