At the age of just 12, Sarah Wilson was made to have sex with multiple men a night while authorities“barely batted an eyelid”, the Rotherham grooming victim has revealed in memoirs of her ordeal.
The now 23-year-old, and whose sister Laura was murdered at the hands of an ‘Asian’ boyfriend in 2010, says she was “just one of dozens of girls” in the town who were “exploited and viewed as white trash”.
“Girls like me — and our families — were crying out for help, but no one listened,” she said. “Politicians were worried that addressing the issue of grooming by British Pakistani men would ‘give oxygen’ to racism.”
The abuse of young, mostly white, girls by older Pakistani men was so widespread in the scandal-hit south Yorkshire town, Wilson told the Mail on Sunday, that she “had no idea” she was a victim of grooming.
“Brainwashed” to believe it was normal to be made to have sex in return for the alcohol and drugs on which much older men had got her hooked, Wilson was abused by drug dealer Arshid Hussain and his criminal associates from the age of 11 until 17 when they moved on to younger girls.
“From the age of 11, I was showered with gifts from men in their twenties and thirties who pretended they were my friends,” explained Wilson, recalling how she was raped in a school playground by a 30-year-old who made her feel “ashamed and disgusted”.
“They told me I was beautiful and bought me anything I wanted: phones, clothes, takeaway food, cigarettes and, of course, alcohol and drugs.
‘“By the time they took me to strange towns to have sex with them and all their mates, aged 12, I was so brainwashed I thought it was normal,” she said, adding that “lots of girls” felt the same in the town, where reports revealed more than 1,400 young females have been abused by predominantly Pakistani gangs since the 1990s.
“Some nights, I was driven hundreds of miles away and ordered to have sex with as many as seven men in a row,” said Wilson.
“How could I say no? I didn’t want to be stranded with no money to get home and they’d got me hooked on the alcohol and drugs they knew I couldn’t afford myself.
“Plus, they’d threatened to petrol bomb my family home if I didn’t do as they said,” she added, detailing warnings which echoed aspects of the grooming scandal recently alleged to have occurred in Telford.
Sixteen-year-old Lucy Lowe, her mother, and sister were killed in a house fire set by her Muslim abuser in the scandal, which is thought to be the biggest in UK history.
Wilson, who has detailed her abuse in a book entitled Violated, said that without the help of her “supportive family” she would either be dead or stuck in a life of crime.
But “disinterested” and “unhelpful” officers “barely batted an eyelid” when her mother called police for help, according to the Mail.
“My mum reported me missing countless times but the police barely batted an eyelid,” said Wilson, reporting that social services took her into care rather than giving the family help.
“They hadn’t made it harder for these depraved men to reach Sarah, they’d made it much easier,” said Wilson’s mother Maggie, noting her daughter had been placed in a children’s home which was “a known target for these predatory gangs”.
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