Victims like Fiona Goddard and worried mothers say they are waiting for the full scale of sexual exploitation in Bradford to be investigated
From the Telegraph
The picturesque town of Keighley is nestled in Brontë country. . . More recently, a far darker story has unfolded in this corner of West Yorkshire.
In 2003, the local Labour MP at the time raised concerns about grooming gangs. Worried mothers had told Ann Cryer their young daughters were being sexually exploited by a group of older Asian men, and that police and social services were failing to take action.
When Cryer spoke out about the issue, she faced accusations of racism and received menacing notes and telephone calls. She stood down in 2010, and several more years went by before anyone was convicted of the sexual abuse. The crimes continued in the meantime.
Multiple local cases have come to court during the past decade . . . Other cases have yet to come to trial. (The Telegraph has links, or search various of my posts here on the Iconoclast.)
But evidence suggests the grooming and sexual exploitation of girls, predominantly by British Pakistani men, is not just a shameful episode in Bradford and Keighley’s history. It is still ongoing here, according to multiple sources.
Last week, a new local case landed on the desk of child abuse solicitor David Greenwood. It involved the alleged abuse of two children from the same family, both aged under 12 at the time. They were allegedly picked up in cars by taxi drivers, plied with alcohol and sexually assaulted by multiple people. A white woman was said to be involved in the grooming too.
This isn’t a historic incident: it allegedly occurred just 18 months ago, around Christmas 2023, and is currently under investigation by police, says Greenwood.
The West Yorkshire-based lawyer, who has represented survivors of similar abuse in Rotherham, estimates that almost 8,000 girls have been affected by these offences in the Bradford council area since 1996. If the figure is anywhere near this, it would dwarf the scale of grooming scandals elsewhere in Britain.
There are now calls for Bradford to be included in the national grooming gangs inquiry announced by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer last month after a U-turn on the issue (previously he accused those asking for a national inquiry of jumping on the far-Right bandwagon).
Bradford, he believes, could in fact be the epicentre of this brand of criminality that spans the country.
“Cases I’ve dealt with [elsewhere] tend to have links with Bradford,” he says. “All roads tend to lead to Bradford. The men often come from Bradford and/or take the girls to Bradford.” It’s hard to gauge how many girls are currently being groomed and sexually exploited in the area, he says. “But I’m convinced it’s continuing, and will continue…[The perpetrators] are clever, manipulative people who will try any means possible.”
In 2019, nine men were convicted at Bradford Crown Court of raping and abusing Fiona Goddard and another teenage girl. Goddard, now 31, waived her legal right to anonymity so she could speak out and show other survivors there was nothing to be ashamed of.
She still lives locally and, like Greenwood, is convinced the area’s grooming gangs problem has not disappeared. Some of the methods may have changed though. In 2008, Goddard was approached on the street. Today, she says, girls are groomed online, too.
“[On] TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, [the men] contact [girls] and get them to come out. So it’s not as open and in your face now.”
There are still local “hotspots”, however, she suggests: certain roads in Bradford where “you still see it quite often – cars either trying to find [young girls] or driving around with them inside.” She has heard anecdotal evidence of teenagers currently being abused “and their families not knowing what to do.”
“A big proportion were in care homes but not all of them. And they weren’t all white. I saw it happen to Pakistani girls, [and] near the end of my abuse, I saw [the men] start targeting Romanian and Polish girls who had just come to the country.”
Bradford is this year’s UK City of Culture. The annual Bradford Literature Festival (June 27 to July 6) is also shining a spotlight on the area’s arts scene. Ambitious regeneration work is ongoing. Out of the spotlight, however, there’s another side to the city.
…There’s a sense among some in Bradford that not only has its scale here never been fully appreciated or understood, but that locals continue to live in the shadow of these crimes.
“I have had, and still have, a range of constituents making contact with me about historic cases and live cases still working their way through the courts, as well as raising concern that this is still happening in Keighley and across the wider Bradford district,” says Robbie Moore, the Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley.
Some have voiced disquiet that perpetrators who targeted them are still at large in the Bradford district. “The concern is they are still walking free and waiting for their cases, or they’re not even [being prosecuted],” says Moore.
On the streets of Keighley, mothers are wary of the dangers. “I don’t think I’ll ever let my kids out,” says Chelsea, 26, who doesn’t want to give her full name. “There are quite a lot of men [targeting young girls].” Lauren, another local parent, agrees. “It’s scary when you’ve got a daughter,” she says.
Police say tackling CSE remains a top priority in West Yorkshire. “We have a dedicated team in Bradford . . . says Chief Superintendent Richard Padwell of Bradford District Police. . . Many investigations are still under way, he adds, with more suspects due to stand trial between now and 2027.
She (Miss Goddard) and others are still waiting for the full scale of the scandal in Bradford to be properly examined. The local authority says it has “nothing to hide.”The council referred itself to the Jay Report in 2014 and gave evidence to it,
The Telegraph illustration is of the roof and tower of Bradford City Hall.
I’ll use this photograph I took myself in May on my way, early evening, to the Alhambra Theatre to see Mary Poppins (it was excellent). It is the area below the fine tower, around the front entrance.
When we came out of the show the centre of the city was eerily deserted; just the members of the audience striding purpousfully to either the car park or the taxi rank. The bus station was the set of B movie Death Plague Decimates the Earth. It wasn’t until our taxi passed through a Muslim district that there were signs of light and life. Busy barbers and men in kurta pajama leaving what I was later told was a Wedding venue (so where were the women?)
Residents of the towns around Bradford that make up the Metropolitan District of Bradford, places such as Keighley, Haworth, Bingley, Ilkley and Saltaire tend not to go into Bradford for shopping and entertainment, other than for something specific at the Alhambra (a magnificent grand Edwardian Theatre rivaling anything in London’s West End) , St Georges Hall or the new venue Bradford Live. Instead they go to Leeds where I have found the city centre always bustling, always friendly, and felt safe, although like everywhere there are less happy districts.
One Response
Will all the rapists and the police colluders be chemically castrated.
Will the punishments be publicized in a TV gala?
Will interviews with repists’ parents be presented?
Will any rapists be deported to their Paradise to be awarded medals?
How will deprived houris be compensated for loss of services?