Roche Delle Grooming: 'I was raped over 100 times since I was 12'
How to Promote Awareness on Sexual Violence
Victoria Derbyshire, Sean Clare, HalliwellPosition, BBC NewsDecember 05, 2024
Warning: The details in this article may be distressing to readers
A woman affected by the Rochdale grooming gang in the UK has revealed that she was raped more than 100 times from the age of 12 and that the police's attitude during this time was 'disappointing'.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Ruby claimed that police took the fetus she had miscarried for a DNA test without her permission.
Former detective Maggie Oliver said that children are still being sexually abused across the country years after Ruby's rape and sexual assault.
The BBC has asked Greater Manchester Police for a statement.
A spokesman for Rochdale Borough Council said: “We are deeply sorry” that we “failed to take the necessary action to protect children from sexual abuse when Ruby was being sexually abused.”
Ruby says she wants to help other child victims so that when they tell the police about the crime, they are “respected and listened to.”
She has also called for counselling after police interviews.
A review report in January revealed that young girls in Rochdale were at the mercy of a grooming gang that sexually abused children for a long time because senior police officers were completely ineffective.
The report examined 111 cases in Rochdale between 2004 and 2013 in which police had failed to investigate. The report also identified 96 people who could be potentially dangerous to children.
Ruby, whose real name cannot be given for legal reasons, told the BBC that the abuse began when some middle-aged men invited her and her friends to a party in a flat.
This continued for a few weeks, but then one day the flat ‘wouldn’t let us in the room’ because there were other people inside.
‘They gave us a litre bottle of vodka and 10 fags. "By the time we got to the other room, we were all very drunk."
"I wasn't feeling anything"
Ruby says that ‘there were 30 to 40 men waiting for me’ and that they ‘kept raping me continuously.’
‘When one was finished (having raped) another would come and this continued all night.’
She says that the abuse continued because the gang threatened her and she felt ‘there was no other way out of this situation.’
‘They had our phone numbers and they would come to school, they would come near my house, wherever we went they would come and find us.’
She says that she was raped ‘over 100 times’ by different men ‘from all over the UK’ over four years.’
She says that ‘(the gang) would take us everywhere... The men were from Bradford and Nelson and Birmingham, Blackpool.
‘I think at the time I didn’t realise what was happening to me.’
In 2008, Ruby went to a sexual health clinic, which for her was ‘like an appeal for help because there was no one to help her.’
‘We told the school and social services what was happening but nothing was done,’ she says. ‘So we went to the clinic where we were given flavoured condoms and sent back.’
Maggie Oliver resigned from her police role in 2012 over her failure to handle abuse cases.
The review report confirms that Ruby had previously revealed to the Crisis Intervention Team that she had middle-aged boyfriends who gave her vodka and sexually abused her.
She was placed on a child protection plan that same year and police became aware of her situation in early 2009.
Ruby had an abortion when she was just 13 and police took the fetus into their custody and had it tested for DNA so that it could be used as part of the investigation.
The review report says it is ‘completely unacceptable’ that Ruby was not asked for permission by the police when they took her away.
She says she was later asked by the police whether she wanted to perform her last rites.
In 2010, Ruby told a social worker that six elderly Asian men were sexually abusing her.
She also told social services that around 60 men were exploiting children on a large scale.
Two years later, one of the men who raped her was sentenced to eight years in prison for trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
However, just four years later, Ruby saw the man in a local shop. She said she had not been told that he had been released.
“At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but then I looked closely to confirm and I knew it was him, so I ran away,” she says.
“Then I went home and didn’t leave the house for three months,” she says.
Ruby says she called the police "but they didn't do anything", adding that "I was in a very bad state."
The review also examines the police investigation into the nine-year-old child abuse case and reveals that the police did not give the crime a high priority.
Maggie Oliver resigned from her police role in 2012 over her failure to handle abuse cases. She has since set up a foundation for victims.
She said child sexual abuse was still happening in Rochdale and that her foundation receives reports from "victims all over the country".
Oliver told the BBC that "victims today are saying to me the same things that Ruby and those children used to say to me 12 years ago."
‘I think the public knows what’s going on, but I also think the police and social services’ claim that they’ve learned their lesson is just a pretense.’
Ruby has called for more support for children who have been sexually abused and said they should be given psychological support after being interviewed by police. ‘I want every child who walks through the door of a police station to report sexual abuse to be heard and understood,’ she says.
‘I think there are a lot of emotions going on at the moment and instead of those children taking those emotions home and working through them on their own, they should be put in a room with a professional therapist so they can talk about their experience,’ she says.
Related topics
#Women’s_health #Human_rights #Sexual_violence #Drugs #Child_abuse #Women #Women’s_rights
No comments: