A woman has told how she was raped and abused by an Asian grooming gang in Scotland’s capital city and has demanded ‘urgency’ to protect younger generations.
Speaking for the first time about her ordeal, the 35-year-old said she was abused while in various children’s homes in Edinburgh from the age of 13 and only escaped her tormentors after moving away at 18.
She is the third woman to speak out in the last month about abuse suffered at the hands of Scottish grooming gangs but First Minister John Swinney has so far rejected all calls for a national probe.
The woman, who we are naming Sarah to protect her identity, told the Mail on Sunday: ‘I was blamed, I was called a prostitute, and I was made to feel that what was happening to me was my fault.
‘This was 20 years ago and I am sure that young women in the care system are still experiencing it today. The government must open its eyes and accept that this happens in Scotland, even if they wish it didn’t. Why is there no sense of urgency?’
Last week Fiona Goddard, from Bradford, told how she was trafficked to Scotland by Asian men, travelling by taxi from the North of England carrying class A drugs.
She was plied with alcohol and drugs and taken to houses in Glasgow and Edinburgh where she was raped by men before returning to Bradford.
And another young woman, using the pseudonym Taylor, has written to the First Minister detailing how she was abused by grooming gangs in Glasgow while she lived in care.
The woman has asked why there is not more ‘urgency’ in tackling the abuse in Scotland
The latest survivor has spoken out after Fiona Goddard, above, from Bradford, told how she was trafficked to Scotland by Asian men, plied with alcohol and drugs and raped
Now Sarah has detailed her horrific ordeal in Edinburgh in the hope it will encourage the government to do more to protect young women in care today.
Sarah said the abuse started in 2004 when she moved to Drylaw children’s home at the age of 13 and started frequenting a local takeaway, which was run by an older Asian man, with some older girls from the home.
She said: ‘We’d sit in the back of the shop, which looked like it was about to cave in, and he would give us free food, free cigarettes, and just let us hang about there.
‘That was my introduction, then I moved to another home – Northfield – where the sexual exploitation started.
‘Again, some older girls used to come for respite at the home and had obviously been involved in this stuff for a while. I’d go out with them and we literally ran out of the home into waiting cars, and were driven to houses. Sometimes they were nice houses, big houses, other times it was horrible flats. Sometimes there were one or two guys in there, others eight or nine.
‘The pattern was always the same – get picked up, go and get vodka or they’d have a bag of vodka and cigarettes for us. We’d then be taken all over the place, sometimes outside Edinburgh, and ended up in these houses. I remember one near Asda at Fort Kinnaird, and another one, a flat in The Calders.
‘Other times we would go to the takeaways and get free food, and the delivery drivers would say to come with them to a party after they’d finished their shift.
‘We’d meet them, they’d get the vodka and the cigarettes and stuff like that from their mates who owned the shop next door. And then in another car, off you go to this party.
Nine times out of 10 when you went to these parties it was “Let’s play strip poker” or “Lets’ go upstairs” or it was implied that because they had given us all of this free food and drink and everything we had to compensate them for it.
Ms Goddard, who bravely shared her story, pictured as a teenager
‘There were other girls in these houses too from other children’s homes. Very occasionally you’d see someone who wasn’t in a home, one of the girl’s friends, but mostly it was girls like me from the care homes.’
When she was 16, Sarah said she was locked in a flat with an older man who became aggressive when she didn’t want to have sex with him. She said: ‘The flat was in the Calders, right at the top so around 20-25 stories up. I was terrified and locked in there, I thought I was going to have to jump out of the window to get out.’
Sarah’s case notes, seen by this newspaper, confirm her accounts and show that social workers were aware of her association with adult Asian men and the fact she was being given alcohol, drugs and cigarettes in exchange for sex.
On one occasion when Sarah was 14, social workers noted: ‘Left with peers in red Nissan Sunny….2x Males. Info passed to police.’
Another incident when she was 15 states: ‘She returned to the unit under the influence of alcohol. Staff noticed a large bruise on her right upper arm. [Sarah] refused to discuss how she came by this or where she had got the alcohol.’
The notes also appear to blame Sarah for her abuse, stating she was ‘reminded about practicing safe sex and provided with info and guidance about the morning after pill’ after disclosing that she had unprotected sex with an ‘Asian boy’, while on another occasion social workers said interviewing her would ’give her heightened awareness of the potential risks she has been putting herself at’.
Another note from 2005 states that staff believed ‘that [Sarah] is getting paid for sex with possibly older males and she is using this money to buy alcohol’ and on another occasion social workers were ‘concerned around [Sarah’s] association with inappropriate males, allegations of being paid for sexual favours, an alleged sexual assault from a taxi driver, two pregnancy scares and tests for an STD had to be undertaken’.
In 2007 her files state: ‘[Sarah] stated she went to a flat…she drank vodka with two of her male friends who were both Asian…The second male forced her to have sex with him.’
Sarah said: ‘ This is happening in Scotland, it happened to me and it will be happening still.
‘Do I think there should be an inquiry? Yes. I don’t think it will magically make everything okay, but I can see it maybe changing how professionals can spot the signs of this kind of stuff and deal with it.
‘Everyone is so scared to approach the subject because they could be deemed racist or prejudice. I am not – I have male friends now who are Asian, I do not think all Asian men are to blame at all. But this is happening. You’ve got young girls who aren’t promiscuous, that aren’t prostitutes – children cannot be prostitutes, no matter how much you spin it.
‘You’ve got vulnerable young girls who need help to get down to the root of why they’re vulnerable, and get them support… then maybe this won’t happen. But in the meantime, why are people who are in charge okay with young girls being in the company of older Asian men, and nothing is done. There needs to be a sense of urgency.’
