Grooming Gang Survivor On Her Fight To Survive | Extraordinary Lives | @LADbible ​

foreign [Music] results um after being raped the night before very surprised by them because I thought I would fail them all and you know I did I did get a D in Psychology because I literally was in one of the exams I'd written a suicide note rather than actually um rather than actually do the exam [Music] extraordinary lives from blood Bible I'm seeing here today with Kate Alicia um great to have you Kate um would you mind just introducing yourself um yeah my name is Kate Alicia and I'm a grooming gang Survivor and a qualified mental health nurse so obviously the topics that we're going to talk about today are um very very dark and upsetting and um if anything's asked in a way that you feel uncomfortable with or you'd like rephrasing or anything like that please just do let me know so for anyone listening that might not be completely clear what is a grooming gang um so um while I was being um abused I didn't really see them as a gang they um were some um people on the street who um were actually neighbors of mine um and they but the the way they behaved was in a gang-like fashion um so they were an organized crime gang already um but they also engaged in um the rape and exploitation of young girls I understand and it what we're here to talk about today is your very unpleasant experiences with that gang where did it start for you you know when you say that there were they were an organized crime gang that we are neighbors did you grow up in that kind of area did you grow up in like a rough neighborhood and that was natural or was it something you moved into no so um I I grew up um like elsewhere um and not too far away really um but I um I moved out of home when I was 18. um and um I know that a lot of um the sort of typical what you would think of a grooming gang victim would be somebody who's come from a broken home okay but um it actually they work on your vulnerabilities and some some people may have come from a difficult upbringing but um my vulnerabilities were slightly different to that so um I was um I moved out of home when I was 18 because um my um house was becoming quite crowded and I was old enough to move out so it wasn't really seen as a big issue um so I left home and I moved to the town where I was actually doing my a levels which was in Telford um and because I'd been there I was in my second year of um college so it I've been going to that town every day for the last year and a half and it looked like quite a nice place to live so I moved um I did end up moving to um supported living for um uh young tea like sort of teenagers between the age of 18 and 25. um and because that was supported it's a supported accommodation so it seemed that also seemed to be um the best place for somebody as young as I was while I was still at college um and um it just happened that the the um road that I was living on that I moved into was um dominated by a particular gang you've heard of like gangs having sort of postcode Wars and so the the street that I moved into had a um had a gang on it which I didn't I didn't understand I didn't know anything about um I was I was only 18 and I only just moved home so there was a lot that I didn't didn't know about the world um and so um I was kind of very naive and sort of blind to actually what was going on on the street was the street itself when you moved there did it feel like a dangerous Street or did it feel like a normal street in the middle of a town um probably in hindsight you might have seen groups of groups of people or groups of men or young young people on the street that actually were part of a gang but you don't want to make that assumption about everyone that you walk past and it had a little park at the end of it and it was only a short road and it was the road that um we that I'd walked through at lunch times to get my lunch between college and the the Town Center so it honestly looked like quite a little Bright Street really with trees on it and you know wouldn't even think anything of it I don't think okay so at the moment you're a normal student living a normal life with accommodation that's been sort of subsidized by the colleges out right by the government really I think the council right yeah and so at what point did you start to fraternize with people that you would later realize were a gang um so um I actually I um I was introduced to them by accident because um technically I was fairly um uh mature for my age really and I wouldn't have hung out with them by choice so I kind of fell into it by accident um and I think it was really through me being a a kind or thinking of myself as a kind person so um when I first moved into the YMCA I wanted to make friends with the the other young people in the YMCA so I wasn't um trying to make friends with every neighbor but my next door neighbor that was um in the flat next to mine um and the neighbor um who was on the other side of the block of flats to mine I made friends with them and they seemed quite um okay you know they were same age as me they were like the um the same sort of people that I would meet at college and it started off it started off well to be fair it um I um was friends with one of the girls and then I was friends friends with one of the boys um who's William um and um we had a little group of three of us and then I had some friends that I worked with um in my part-time job and we all started hanging out together and there was about a group of five of us in total um and all of that seemed absolutely fine and um it was William who had some other friends um and really I think that he was had come from a broken home or something had um like he'd had more difficult upbringing and he went to um he went to a different College to us and it was called necro and I didn't realize at the time because I didn't know anything about anything but nakro is um for children who have is a school for children who have behavioral difficulties and may or may not have a criminal record okay so um he I mean he wasn't he wasn't evil he was he was just vulnerable like we were um and I think we put too much responsibility on boys um to be more responsible of the girls that they're with but really I just think that he'd got mixed up in the gang um probably because he was either taking drugs or um they'd coerced him into selling drugs which I don't know I'm just speculating um and um he was friends with them and I don't feel like it was necessarily by choice um I think they were quite pushy with him um they used to use his flat for um using like dealing drugs or um what he described as having sex with other girls so he would you they would use his flat because they couldn't use their own house or that was their excuse um and at the time it didn't sound right but you know to begin with we didn't know at all um and then as sort of weeks go on of being friends with someone they open up a bit more um and he starts telling us these things are a bit odd um so that's um and he yeah that's how we we and I ended up meeting these other people on the street that were members of gangs through William through being friends with women you met the these other members that lived on the street through William and they were it sounds like they were exploiting him when you say they're using his Flats to do things to deal drugs and things like that um how did you begin to get more involved with them um um so there was the I was having some difficulties with them um uh William um had uh so so he would sell his phone um to Cash Converters to buy drugs um or to I don't know maybe to live on um for money to live on and then he would buy his phone back at the end of the month when he got paid again right um and while he um didn't have a mobile phone he was giving my number out without permission um as a way of getting in touch with him so people started calling me to say um is William there and I'd be like and and then they would be calling me for other reasons if I said William's not there then they'd be trying to make conversation with me over the phone um and that's how they kind of got to hear of me um I don't know if William had talked to them if he had I think it would have it wouldn't have been in a malicious way it would have been in in an innocent way so perhaps he told them that he fancied me or that he liked me in some way or I've met this girl and I like her and they because they were actually using him and taking advantage of him they wanted to have one up on him by getting his girl or the girl that he fancied if that makes sense um so there was there was a male dominant thing going on between him and them at the time and that's how I they ended up getting I like they got my attention or I got their attention Yeah you sort of came into the radar ladies yeah yeah and what was the if you don't mind me asking and you happy to say what was the first incident so mentioned that that Shamil was getting I didn't know who Shamil was um it was the first time anybody had mentioned his name um he wasn't on the street so I hadn't even seen him around because he was in prison um and it was kind of word on the street and um they um are they sort of told me things about him but I didn't really know who he was um and then the first time um he when he got when he did get out of prison um I was warned as well to avoid him so I was absolutely to be honest terrified I didn't know any criminals um and I didn't really want to know any criminals did you know what he was in prison for um I'd heard lots of different things but they were all violent so um uh whether it was because he had um broken somebody's jaw a stranger in the street he said he'd beaten up somebody said he'd been be not somebody stranger in the street Broken their jaw they'd be in a hospital and um and then I heard that he'd broken into somebody's house with a knife obviously those things are completely different so I don't know which one is which um whether either of them were true but it sounded like it was something violent anyway um and when I um the first time I met him I didn't realize this wishing me all that everybody was talking about because um William just stopped and started talking to him um and I um didn't think anything of it at the time um and it wasn't until he um knocks on my door um that I actually met him properly um so he knocked on my door William was actually in um I am at mine at the time and um when I looked through the Spy hole it wasn't him it was it was a a child um so I didn't know I didn't know why a child was knocking on my door so I just answered it and when I answered the door um I had a his he put his foot through the door so we I couldn't then close it the child or no Shamil the child disappeared instantly so do you think that was like a he'd done that so to make sure you answered the door he made a child okay yeah so he's quite intimately yeah yeah so he tricked me into answering the door by having a child there um and um yeah that was obvious from the second the foot was in the door and the child was gone but there wasn't much I could do about it apart from trying to push him out um so I started shouting to um to William like help he's coming in like someone trying to come in um and William said is it Shamil and I I said yes and he said let him in um I think he probably said let him in because he's scared of him yeah um so I and because he'd instructed me to let him in psychologically I just stopped fighting and I let him in because and you know like in that Split Second you really wish that you hadn't done that but then it just because you only had a second to think about it was just automatic so um kind of maybe I was trusting William I didn't know what was going to happen maybe he knew what was going to happen but I don't think he knew either so um also I don't know if I was winning the fight so I could feel as guilty as I like about that that Split Second that I let go of the door but whether I was winning the fight or not is is another question because it was a foot in the door I don't know what I would have done um so then he he came in he made some excuse to William and then William left and the thing is William is scared so he would just do what you told him to um and then William didn't come back and um then he was alone with me in the flat and it's kind of like that moment that the door shut and William had left and then Shamil was in the flat with me was like the second that you realized like in how much danger you're actually in um and it was um he was he was like literally circling me um and I was like I was a bit like a scared rabbit basically so there was no pretense of friendship it was just an immediate sense of intimidation um he was um so he was saying things that appeared like friendship but it was absolutely terrifying so it was like I want you to be my girlfriend this is a stranger that I'd never met before and he's just come out of prison for something violent um and he was saying things like I will I'll buy you a car I'll buy you a house and I was thinking how is the criminal gonna buy me a house like I'm just terrified about what's happening right now um and um he was trying to hug me and he was trying to kiss me and I was trying to push him off me um and but not in a not in a I was trying not to be aggressive because I didn't want him to be aggressive back to me I was really terrified um so that's kind of how it started and then it just progressed from there um he like with trying to he was trying he was undressing me and I couldn't stop him from undressing me I was trying to say like don't do that and um stop and um Can don't take my underwear off and I was just trying to plead with him and you know it sounds really pathetic but I was so scared of course um it doesn't sound pathetic at all it sounds terrifying yeah sorry um and um uh I managed to I don't know bargain with him somehow to leave my underwear on and she said please leave mine or I don't like don't take anything else off like just stop now at that um and then he was because he was trying to be pretend to be nice he was like okay I'll leave your underwear on um and then he um put me down on the bed um and got on top of me and then he was um uh undressing him a lot he must have undressed himself first sorry but like he was in his boxes and I even remember the color um which I won't share with you um but um he he was like he was like like he agreed not to leave my um underwear on so he just moved my underwear out of the way and then started to rape me and I knew what he was doing but I just was too terrified to like say anything else um and I just had to like wait underneath him until like he'd stopped um and um I don't like all the pleading that I could possibly do and then when he started to rape me I thought like I haven't I can't actually get out of this anymore like it's happened now so um I've just gotta wait till it's over sorry no you don't need to apologize awful situation and after he'd finished did he leave the house um actually I think he just wanted to put me I don't know why he's so I think he was a bit of a psycho um uh I can't even say that in a nice way to be to be honest and I don't think I should have to say it in a nice way of course um he I don't know what what was going through his head but um he what he like he was asking me afterwards like if I found him attractive and he was asking me if um um what I thought of his body um and I was very aware that I'd just been raped and I was also still very terrified of him so um I but I also wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of like what he wanted to hear so I was like and I was at the point where I didn't care anymore as well so like he just raped me so I actually hate you and um I now kind of wish I was dead as well so I don't really care what you do to me if I tell you you're ugly and that I hate you and so I said those things um and he was like what um but he didn't react I don't think he knew how to react because I don't think he knew what he was doing I don't think he was all there psychologically um and um and then he took me around to William's house um Williams flat and then he was saying in front of William don't worry I only got her to give you a give me a um which isn't even remotely what happened at all and I don't know why he was saying that to him and um and I was just the entire time I was still shaking and not saying anything because I thought um what am I gonna say I just want really wanted to get rid of him so I thought if I just wait until he's gone then um then I can actually process what's just happened um and then he he wanted to leave Williams flat so he left and um then he wanted to kiss me and I had to be like pin me against the wall and I had to kiss him and then he left um and then finally I was on my own and I thought oh God that was awful um and then William came back around and then William was having a go at me because he was like how could you give him a blow job and I was just oh I was just you know that didn't even have that's not what happened just leave me alone um and it's actually really messed up it's really really messed up um and it's not like what it might look like in the movies and it's not a you know it doesn't make any sense um and you know one thing would lead to to another and um William pretended to leave my flat after we'd gone back round um and then I called my friend on the phone who is my friend from school and I told her that I'd just been raped um and this was like at the first moment I'd actually got to be myself um and um she cried I cried and she cried on the phone with me and it was like a really upsetting moment um but then I had to go because William hadn't really left because he'd wanted to actually spy on what I was going to say to my friend and then he realized that I'd been raped and then he was like really apologetic about the way he just behaved um and he wanted to help me and he wanted to um call his auntie and see because he wanted a an adult woman to talk to me to see what to do next and they were all talking about going to the police I was like oh my good you know I couldn't hadn't had time yet to like process anything so I was like still in like this absolute shock and still shaking are you okay yeah I think so okay well just let us know if you want a longer break okay so okay so I mean that's that's quite a huge change in in your experience living in that area um and it's this individual Shamil was clearly very dangerous and Disturbed was he part of a wider group or was he kind of a loan agent at that point um he had he had some family members he had a brother and he had a cousin and um I sort of was aware of that but um I hadn't you know I didn't understand the way gangs were yeah um so I felt like he was a loan agent but he clearly wasn't um and I think me not realizing that he was part of a wider gang was even was you know was a dangerous for me because the risk was a lot higher than I anticipated um so when I finally did speak to the police a few um days later so it wasn't I didn't hadn't left it too long I just you know needed to process and lots of people were trying who I told I told lots of people but the people I had told were trying to convince me to speak to the police yeah so um I went to the police and um I spoke to them in absolute um confidence because I so I I never told anybody I didn't tell William I didn't tell my friend my next door neighbor who we were friends with I didn't tell my family I because I was I was really terrified of what chamille might do or what his family might do to me if they knew that I was speaking to the police about what he'd done um so um when and what I'm going just going back to um the actual risk I was in so when I'm speaking to the police I don't realize what's going to happen next um I'm too scared to if I you know I've got this in ideal in my head that if he's arrested they'll have to tell him what he's arrested for so they'll arrest him and they'll take him to prison and everyone will know what he did um and that it was me that reported it yeah and then the other dangerous people on the street like his brother and his cousin are going to come around and be like why have you just reported my brother or cousin to the police now look now look what's happened so I was terrified I was really really scared um and I don't think I got the right advice but if I'd have realized that the The Wider gang was and this was a plot so it was a bit this was a plot they'd set Shamil on me because Shamil is the um the aggressor as it were so I don't know I don't know what they call it the Rottweiler of the group or whatever you know so if somebody needs beating up they'll send him out um and um if somebody needs to be raped they'll send him out um so they knew that it would make me more venerable um to being abused by them as well so they um so two days later um Ali came around with his friend um and I was raped Again by Ali and and his friend um this is someone you knew already or a stranger um so I knew Old Valley um but again um I'd only been there a month so this is after just a month of living in the YMCA yeah so I'd only been out a month um uh so I barely knew any of them yeah um and I barely had a chance to um you know I'd had um a couple of introductions Ali was one of the guys who had called me on the phone asking for William um but I didn't really know them at all um so and I didn't know his friend at all he was a complete stranger and this was the first time that like obviously did anything like that had ever happened to me but until you had told the police so did that did anything happen from that um I um I told the police about Shamil yeah and um I'd say I told them that I was afraid of him being arrested um so they were because I was I was told by um the P my counselor um at college that if I wanted that I should tell the police at least for their information um so that they've got the sort of Intelligence on him um and that if I didn't want him to be arrested then I didn't have to do that and the reason that I was worried about him being arrested was because of what would the repercussions yeah um I wasn't really um reassured about it so there wasn't nothing like oh let me let us help you tell your family and then maybe you can go back home um and where you'll be safe or we could re-house you somewhere where you could be feel safe because I lived on the same street assuming yeah and I lived on the same street as his as Ali Sultan as well and um his and his brother and he's got you know and the other people that could potentially be a risk to myself to my life to me physically but when did the police when you told them did they give you options or did you get the advice or was it more like thank you for the report that's knowing our records well the advice was um if you wanted to be arrested um report it as rape but if you don't so it was this way around so if you don't want him to be arrested you have to say it was consensual right but if you say that it's rape then we have to arrest him right okay so they wrote me a statement um to say it was consensual which seems to be common practice really for the police to actually write your statement for you but I was quite surprised by that yeah um and all I had to do was sign the statement that had been written for me right to say that it was consensual and then it would just go down as intelligence right okay so it sounds like it started to spiral quite quickly from the point of Shamil to Ali and his friend coming around how quickly then did it spiral further out of control um I think really it's it it was spiraling from the first rape so two days later um I was raped by Ali and his friend and then another two days after that um I was raped by his brother um a few um weeks after that Ali would keep coming back round um it was it was it wasn't every day but it was roughly twice a week and sometimes it would be two men in a day um and yeah so I'm I'm aware that uh whether the victims it escalates and it becomes multiple multiple men um in a night or in one weekend um this was the very beginning of the grooming for me so I was I didn't have that period of time where they um were giving me gifts and um weaning me into being friends with them they just went straight in with um quite traumatic um rape it incidents and events for me and sorry this this is going to seem like an incredibly insensitive question but why didn't you leave the area at that point um I um so I I was planning to leave I was thinking in my head like I've got to get out of here but I didn't actually know how because I um was helped into the YMCA in the first place so I filled in a form um and they found me a flat to live in so I didn't actually know how to move house at that time and I didn't know how to get away I didn't know how to tell my family because I put a lot of blame on myself and I think that the way that I would have described it to my family because of the blame the self-blame they would have blamed me as well so I thought everyone would blame me I thought it was my fault I thought I'd got myself into a really bad situation um and I was ashamed so I found it really difficult to actually say help me I'm I'm like I really desperately need help um so I and I didn't know how to help myself um so it took me a um a couple of months um so not long but it took me a little while to actually figure out how to move to move um it couldn't have been an instant thing for me during the period this was happening and escalating were you still attending college um yeah so um it was I was at the end of my eight my a levels so um when I for the first I didn't say I didn't mention that but for the first the first rape when I was first raped by Shamil the one that I just described um it was the weekend before all my major exams so I had um six exams in five days um that that following week and he'd rape me on the Sunday and my next my exam was gonna be on the Monday I think I had a psychology exam on Monday um and then I had an English exam in his psychology exam on the Tuesday I had a biology exam on the Wednesday and then I went to the police on Wednesday um and then you know I had some more exams on the Thursday and Friday and then I spoke to the and I was raped again on Thursday and I went back to the police and gave the statement on the Saturday so um after that um because all my exams were over I it was the um it was the um summer holidays um and I was waiting for my a level results um so I was even um raped the day before I um got my a-level results and I you know walked up to um College in a bit of a days to like pick them up and I expected to fail everything but I didn't luckily okay so the the experiences horrifying and probably at that age and he's probably heard the process in terms of like what do you do when this has started happening but what with with a grooming gang what what is the purpose for them to begin to do this to you as you know are they trying to make you somebody that's like a slave to them or are they trying to you know is it simple simply sexual abuse why when you said that they had um Shamil as the kind of attack dog that would go out and and do this why would they do this to people so um I don't know if they are fully aware of what they're trying to do themselves um maybe that's me not giving them the amount of intelligence they deserve or whether it's you know I I get the feeling that it's um it's a learned behavior from them so they just know they know how to do it because they've been sexually abused themselves is how I feel but um with the Telford grooming gang um they were also the the people who raped me um were also already forcibly pimping out other underage girls um as well so they were doing that for money um and they were um they had been grooming them probably and well I know in a very similar way to the way they groomed me um to accept this lifestyle um and then Contin so they could continue to abuse you and I think that these traumatic really traumatic events that they inflict on you um is a way of breaking a human being the same way that you break a horse so I kind of felt that way I would like when I when I was like in the pits of my depression about it I would feel that I'd been broken um like you break a horse when um I don't know if you know how they break horses but they um so I'm talking about like a wild horse and making taming a wild horse so you um tie it to I don't know everything about to a post and then you sort of Chase it right this is the um simplistic version you chase it round in a circle until eventually it physically like is physically exhausted and then it gives up and then you can tame it from then and you can teach it um how you can teach it the tricks and it's Wilson broken yeah yeah um so I feel like that's what they did to me they broke my will to well broke my will to live and then all the will to defend myself and then I gave up and I gave up on myself and I think there's even a very I think I I feel like I can even pinpoint the moment it happened um and um the moment I've felt like this was my life now and on now I'm a and I can't actually change that and there's nothing else I can do and that's it from now on um and that's what that's kind of how how they bring you into it sorry that I might not feel like I went off on a tangent no no it's it's it makes complete sense and it's a really clear description for like because for me it's just so hard the two things that are so hard to process is the pain of what you were put through and the cruelty that these people inflicted on of the humans and the explanation on both sides there about the fact that it was a learned behavior and the breaking the horse which is a very good analogy make it does make it very understandable so I know we we've met before and uh I remember you talked about a party incident and I was wondering if you tell us about that um so uh I was taken to a party um by a guy that I'd essentially met very recently well that that day actually um but I'd been so I'd been raped um actually I was actually four months into being raped um twice a week or three times a week um so I was quite psychologically damaged at that point and going through quite a lot um and not sure where my head was at um and a very vulnerable state in my um ordeal really but um he took me to a party um and um there were he so first of all he um took me he wanted to he wanted to get me drunk but I didn't actually drink so he taken me to um the Tesco to like pick up some alcohol and um sorry was this a member of the gang or was this someone you'd met separately I'm well it all it all looks separate sure so you felt like you wasn't a member of got you okay yeah yeah so it felt like I'd met him separately but actually I'm on the same street so why would I even think that but um uh so he took me to Tesco um and I sat in the car and waited for him to come out and he picked up some Smirnoff um vodka which um is a tactic that they use for for their victims and they used and it probably worked under the victims but I hated alcohol and I specifically hated vodka so um oh she's rolling my eyes and thinking oh God he's bought vodka um and um but I didn't I didn't say anything and then um and then he drove me all around he took me onto a dual carriageway and then he I don't know how like drove a really long way basically to somewhere an area that I actually knew um which was not that far away from my house um it was actually um uh next to the Morrisons which was my local um shopping center that I walked to I'm shopping what do you call it supermarket and I'll walk to and um and I thought why is he why is he taking me all this way around and it didn't make sense to me at the time but it I mean afterwards in hindsight it does because you know because you can always look in hindsight and see all the problems um and they're all the warning signs but at the time I was just confused I was like like no idea why I did that um when the place is right here um but he was actually trying to confuse me seem like you were going far away yeah he was trying to make me feel lost right um and he's trying to make me feel helpless like I couldn't I wouldn't be able to walk home but I because yeah and you were drinking presumably at this point were you drinking the vodkas oh God no oh okay no I'll tell you um so I so he poured me a drink at the party so we got to the party there were lots of different people there they weren't um they weren't they were all a mix of different people um but it was mostly men um there were two other women there who were older than me um and they were already very very drunk and so I never really got to know those two other ladies that were there um and he poured me a drink and he pulled me a drink it was like a normal sort of tumbler glass where he was a tall one and he pulled half vodka and half lemonade in it there was a and I look and I watched him pour it and I thought there's absolutely nowhere either I'm gonna be able to drink that um and I because I I hated the taste it made you know I couldn't even yeah I couldn't even imagine drinking it but um I was embarrassed by that because I was a teenager and it was cool to drink um so I didn't let them know that I wasn't gonna drink it I just sort of styled it a bit and I was like you know how you always find him in the party in the kitchen at party so I was like hanging out in the kitchen with the drink in my hand next to the sink and pretending to take a sip and then pouring it when no one was looking pouring into the sink um but that was me being like very embarrassed about um not being able to actually drink um so I think in a way it was I don't know if I I don't think it helped I don't think it actually made any difference I think the only difference it made is that one um I remembered what was what happened more vividly and it was a lot more painful um so I don't feel like it not drinking didn't really help me um in in either way it might have helped if they'd have known that I wasn't drinking because if they'd have known that I was like fully Compass mentors that maybe they would have changed their mind about what they were going to try and make me do maybe they would have had more respect for me because they used um the girl being drunk as an excuse to say that that's enough reason they shouldn't be drunk and that's why they're they deserve to be raped so maybe if they knew but on you know it might not I don't think it would have made any difference um but yeah so try to get me drunk they thought so that's another warning sign really but I didn't recognize it I thought it was cool to drink and that's why they were trying to get me drunk and was he being fairly friendly at this point yeah yeah not aggressive no no no it was lovely and you know he's being nice and his friends were lovely as well and they were all like being welcoming and um there was music on and it was like a normal house party um and then he sort of convinced me into the bedroom a bit later on um I don't know maybe I haven't got enough excuse maybe I haven't you know made well I was you know I wasn't um I was vulnerable and I was already um being being raped on a regular basis and um part of me was trying to take back control all the time so I was very confused about whether I should consent to sex or whether I shouldn't and what the difference was anymore because I put a lot of blame on myself full times that I'd actually been raped which I thought were consensual because they really pushed me into it or I'd given up at some point and um um I'd allowed it to happen to myself and that's how I'd felt about all these scenarios so I was trying to um very sort of naively trying to be like I I like to have sex when I want to have sex so if I go out and find it then you know maybe that's um will make me feel better about sex as a whole um anyway I think they count on that I think this is another way that they're actually grooming you into being very confused about consent um so he tricked me into the bedroom I I went into the bedroom with him he obviously knew what he was going to do um and he'd lied to me the entire time um and um and then um he um raped me anally it's really difficult to talk about um and I think one one reason I talk about it is because it is so humiliating that that humiliate that humiliating feeling um used to be a um like a feeling that would induce Suicidal Thoughts in myself okay and now I share that because that humiliation stops you from seeking help okay um and now I just now I don't care because I think if I if I put my myself through admitting what happened then um that humiliation can no longer rule me anymore um so that's why that's one of the reasons I talk about this particular rate because I think it is really humiliating and I think that it's a it's one thing that happens to some rape victims and they don't want to come forward because they blame themselves for like literally putting themselves in the bedroom alone with them in that vulnerable situation and then this this is what happens and that therefore it's their fault which is which is wrong um and I'll just sorry I'll just describe it though uh you don't have to no no I won't describe I'm like no I'm going to describe um why it's a crime okay um in the sexual offenses act um you can consent to some things and not consent to other things okay and um if you make your consent clear then um or your non-consent clear then they and the person who is the perpetrator knows that you are not consenting then that's rape and you can also in the sexual offenses Act consent to something and then withdraw your consent at any time and then it's rape then it becomes rape so you can so you can consent to a sexual act at the beginning but if you try and you you signal that you want to stop and they don't stop then they know that you're not consenting anything and that becomes rape um so it's not really up for debate for the individual people who were thinking whether you deserve it or you deserve it in the eyes of the law that was non-consensual sex which is rape yeah um so yeah so um I was raped anally by him I tried to escape I screamed I shouted I said stop um one reason was because at the beginning I thought it was an accident so I didn't actually expect him to continue to try and have sex with me after I was saying that it was um that you know that I was in pain um he knew what I was going to do and he knew that I was going to try and pull away which which now I can look in hindsight and say he had experience so he knew that it was going to be be painful and he knew what a victim does when that pain hits you which is to pull away and he knew I was going to pull away and he was already prepared for that so he pushed his body to into mine knowing that if he did that I couldn't escape and I smacked my head on the headboard I was trapped and he knew that I was trapped there and he then I just had to wait until he was finished um and you know that's horrible and that is intentional rape that is intentional rape from someone who is an experienced serial rapist um and that's the reason that I share that that incident even to this day and unfortunately I did report that to the police but it um but they couldn't find enough evidence that we even knew each other he said that he'd never met me before and they couldn't put because no one at the party would come forward either they couldn't put me in him in the same room together ever so I couldn't even prove that I knew him or you know I don't know what why because I id'd him in an ID parade um yeah and it's still yeah yeah so I am what do you call it when you sort of positively ID them in an ID parade and but that still wasn't enough evidence to to take it forward or that's what the police said to me um sometimes they don't tell you the truth yeah um which is the yeah you you come across as very strong by the way oh thank you when you're telling the story you come across as a very strong person oh thank you hi there this is Ben Paul Jones we're just going to take a quick break from today's episode to talk a little bit about our sponsor a brand new six-part podcast from message heard and podimo who robs a Banksy follows journalist Jake Warren as he sets out to explore the Stranger Than Fiction tale of the man who kidnapped a Banksy statue from the middle of Central London in broad daylight and held it to Ransom the ACT would lead to an almost 20-year war of bad blood relations and legal battles that are still being waged today and it all comes down to one man and one Vendetta but it doesn't end there the story will take us on a journey through the UK's most subversive 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all they um I think they enjoy the the chase as it were they enjoy the pretense so they um use it as a um again a reason to disrespect you that use it as a as a way of laughing at you behind your back um they use it as um look at this silly girl she deserves it so they're looking for reasons all the time why you deserve to be abused um and um and if you're consenting for the longest and complying for the longest period of time they have less work to do to get what they want out of you it makes it easier for them to abuse you at the last minute do you think I mean it's probably conjects here but do you think they view women as lesser beings like lower life forms I mean the thought of putting people through these things do you think they were treating men in the same way maybe not with sexual abuse but in other ways or do you think it's specifically women so I think involved I think there is a hatred there for women um but I also think there's an element of um um it's called the social personality disorder um but it used to be called Psychopathic personality disorder um so where they really cannot identify with the um with the feelings and of in of other individuals and actually um sort of aiming to please themselves all the time and they can't um identify with other people's pain it's like a complete lack of empathy yes complete lack of empathy yeah um and I believe that you know there's several things at play there for the reason why they can why they can actually do this to women or anyone okay well that I mean awful story and an awful experience um but I'm aware that at some point you started to try to plan an escape didn't you for to go to university so how did that come about um so I was um so I got my a-level results um after being raped the night before um uh very surprised by them because I thought I would fail them all and you know I did I did get a D in Psychology because I literally was in one of the exams I'd written a suicide note rather than actually um rather than actually do the exam did you give that in yeah I mean it was a bit cryptic so it wasn't it wasn't obvious that I was you know I wasn't saying I'm going to kill myself now because maybe they would have flagged that up and done you'd hope so yeah um it was more like a um it was actually more like a sorry sorry to have let you down and um I was really upsetting to remember now but sorry to have like wasted your time um because you're going to open this um exam paper and it's completely blank so um that it was along those lines so I just sort of written a cryptic suicide note but it probably just looked like or an apology basically um so I knew that I'd failed that exam um and uh hang on a minute where am I and then but you had gotten yeah upgrade yeah yeah I got a C in English and I was like yes I wouldn't even expect that but I was like oh um something uh over a you know it's much better than I was expecting right um and um because before that my plan had I had some little plans in my head and I was thinking let me go back to college and retake my um last year and then at least most of the time I'll be out like if I can continue being a full-time student I'll be out of my flat yeah most of the time so um they won't be able to find me at home as they were doing during the summer holidays um and um my next my next plan was maybe I couldn't get a job and I'll be out most of the time yeah um I'd got a part-time job but I mean you know a better job that had more hours um and um but then when I got my a-level results um I'd gone back to college to try and go back and they'd say well you've got decent a level results so we're not going to fund you for another year right and they were a bit like matter of fact with me and I was like oh no and then I was like I can't know that plan's not gonna work and and they said we'll put you with the student advisor so that you can find out what university you can go to um and when I met the student advisor oh she was lovely a really really nice lady um I was actually quite I'd had a fight with William at the time and I was all bruised up um yeah yeah oh wow a physical fight um which I don't feel too bad about because I don't feel like I was beaten up I feel like it was a fair fight we'd literally oh yeah I hit him first um and then you know it was you know it's all going on anyway um but she felt bad for me because I was bruised I was bruised up so I'd clearly been in some sort of physical altercation um I was a young girl and she was like you should look after yourself better um and um she uh said do you want to go to university this year or next year at that point it was September so um I had to double take for a minute and I said yeah like how much like there was only four months of the year left I was like what do you mean this year and she was like yeah you can apply through something called clearing um which is where there there's some spaces left at University on the courses so they're trying to get rid of them as quickly as possible so you can apply um and um I wanted to do so psychology then that's why I was doing a-level psychology um but all the places were sort of taken up for psychology and I didn't want to um I didn't want to wait a year no and I didn't want to go to a university that was nearby yeah so I didn't want to go to Wolverhampton University and I didn't want to go to Birmingham University um nothing against those universities they were just yes too close too local yeah too close and I thought that they can come and get me if um if I go to either of those locations so um we looked at mental health nursing and there were lots of places and I think we might have picked the first University on the list which was or one of the first universities on the list which was Anglia Ruskin a in alphabetical order um and um she really bent over backwards to get me in to the university yeah actually so she'd seen something there yeah and at this point how long had it gone on for with the Telford gang um so so non-4 it's five months um you did manage to escape so to speak to University and you got a place in University and you moved there which you hoped would be the end of the situation but unfortunately it wasn't was it uh no um I I mean so to begin with um I was very glad that I'd escaped so um um was like you can't imagine the relief yeah actually of and I I really liked the town I I like suddenly had this appreciation for life like so I loved the town I loved the um the bricks in the in the street yeah where was this sorry again um it was since yeah and it's um some of the buildings are like fairly new or they were anyway at the time and um so maybe the maybe the floor had been recently changed in the High Street or something and I was just in love with everything I just thought oh my God this is great um I even even at University they had these um automatic hand uh sanitize the gel and the toilets would come out and it smelled like um it was a cherry flavor and I'd even remember the smell of that and um thought it was great because it reminded me of like when we were kids and we had some shampoo that was Cherry um flavored smelled what's this scented scented yeah okay um and um so I was really glad I was like I felt lucky to be alive I thought oh my god I've like actually made it I've got it out of there um and um very quickly though um I started to develop symptoms of PTSD but I didn't realize what that was at the beginning so it started off with um it started off with flashbacks but I wasn't conscious of the flashback so I didn't know that I was having memories um and um I thought the first I would know about it was that I would be first I'd be fine sort of trying to do some work on the computer in my room um in Halls at University and then the next thing I know I would be sitting underneath my desk crying and then I would be like why am I crying so I wouldn't even feel the emotion of crying so I wouldn't even like so it would be it was very lost space like a blackout period yeah yeah um and I um so this was happening so probably about twice a week um and um sort of a few weeks into it I caught myself shouting at Ally so like shouting at Ali Sultan who was one of the men who'd abused me um but there was no one there obviously this was a past event and I was repeating the same words that I'd said to him at the time or and it just suddenly made me aware that I was having a memory and this wasn't like a nightmare this was like a way awake yeah suddenly having a a vivid flashback yeah yeah so um I I realized what I was remembering and so I realized the incident that I was remembering and I didn't even realize that was an issue so I didn't realize I've been traumatized by that situation because I'd been so groomed in like and into believing that everything I was doing was consensual that that incident that had happened was just like another day while I was living there but all of a sudden I was having these memories about it and I thought it was bizarre so I like I was shouting at Ally and I thought why am I shouting at Annie why am I why am I having this memory why does why am I even bothered about it why am I crying and you know it was a bit of a a shocking moment for me you know it stays with me now so I'll just you know really had no idea what was going on um and I think you know that's when I started realizing that I was more bothered by what had happened than than I realized and I'd first realized um and I called them I called them episodes because I didn't know how to explain what they were and it was happening so early on when I started uni that even though I was zoom into Health nursing we hadn't got to that bit yet so we were actually doing a foundation course in um in the first year um which had all the different nursing aspects of it so we weren't doing mental health nursing we were doing um like General adult nursing um and so we hadn't got to that bit so I didn't know what was what the hell is going on um and I didn't recognize them as a panic attack because maybe it wasn't a panic attack um but I didn't feel in panic I felt upset and I felt distressed but I didn't even know if I knew what to call it distress so you basically basically it sounds as though you didn't have the tools to identify what was happening yeah to identify kind of trauma or yeah host traumatic stress and things like that yeah exactly exactly um so certain things would trigger me off as well and I couldn't identify triggers um but um one one trigger was like when I you know because you just have to live it because you're living it every day when you're being raped every day but you still have to get up and carry on and um feed yourself and you know every time I open the fridge or every time I cooked pasta on the on the Hub when I was eating um I would maybe have a memory of the time that I was eating pasta in the YMCA but I knew I was being about to be or I had just got raped afterwards or after I'd been raped or I had something to eat so I'd always have this feeling that it was still going on um and then I would end up in my room again on the floor crying my eyes out because I tried to make pasta um and um I thought it was really weird and I didn't know how to explain it to anyone and were you were you at that point in time were you building relationships and friendships in University or you kind of just keeping yourself away keeping your head down so I I was trying at Uni um but I um felt really I couldn't help it I felt really different to everyone yeah of course I felt like um other people are um other people my own age are um just come from their parents house and they are um like free and innocent and they want to go out and party and I was probably a bit terrified of partying and because of the party incident um and I was probably a bit more terrified of drinking as well because of the incident um and so I wasn't interested in any of the things they were doing and I just felt very different to them um and I felt like if they knew what had happened or who I was because I was this really bad person that had been behaving very like sexually bad um then they wouldn't like me so I thought I was a bad person and that I was keeping this really bad horrible secret about who I was um I felt like I'd got a second chance to start again and not let people have that reputation of about me but I was keeping that I had to keep that a secret from people so um I found it really difficult to make friends for that reason yeah it makes complete sense and and what was the point that because eventually what happened was you got connected to a different gang didn't you yeah so um while I was still in the YMCA in Telford um there had um it was Shamil had um being in prison with um so he he introduced me to his cousin he was still in prison his cousin who was in prison um Kate was coming out on day release because he was in a cat D prison where they allowed them to come out um he was um friends with or connected with someone else in prison who was part of another gang and um he I don't know sold my number or sold my details or gave him it's traded my details for something else in prison um and um sort of set up a meeting with me and um another man from Birmingham and that's how I ended up with the Birmingham introduced to the Birmingham gang um when I met that man he was a lot nicer to me um than the Telford gang um he um would tell me that they were wrong for the way they were treating me I would confide in him so I found friendship in him um and I found that I felt like I could be myself with them because I could be honest about my life in the YMCA with them and they wouldn't find it weird they they had they understood because they were living the life as well um obviously not under the same circumstances as myself but from being in that Circle as it were um and um so I was introduced to him and then I was introduced to other members of his gang um other members of his family and they were nice to me and they were okay with me and I found it easier to hang out with them because they weren't as hateful and um sort of intentionally abusive as the gang in Telford um so the gang in Telford were really evil to me they were like they intended to inflict harm on me they were laughing at me embarrassing me um humiliating me making me feel intentionally worthless and then I had this gang in Birmingham who were being nice to me and welcoming and um sort of not being forceful or pushy yeah um but still expecting from me what the other gang had um but because I was more experienced now um with the extreme experience that I'd had from the Telford gang I knew how they wanted me to behave um and how to behave in a way that would make them have more respect for me it's it's complicated to explain but this is the effects of the the manipulation what actually happened um through the the trauma that they put me through um was intentional to get me to start behaving in a way that um they was socially acceptable in their Circle yeah that makes sense and then that made me feel comfortable in their Circle and segregated me from everyone else and were you still when you with the Birmingham gang were you at University at this point when you started to were they were you still in contact with them or did you move up to Birmingham yeah so to begin with no um I was still Intel I was still in Telford yeah um and then I moved to um Essex this is my chance to escape yeah um and then I started having really terrible mental health in Essex yes I couldn't get on with the um people in Essex I felt different from everyone it wasn't anything to do with them or their fault um but I just had this terrible feeling in myself um and I still the Birmingham gang was calling me to them and I felt more comfortable with them and I felt like I could be myself with them because I felt like that was my honest true self was that I was worthless yeah and that I and if other people um I was trying to keep up these pretense in in Essex that I was somebody and I found that really difficult and I found that really like the like a responsibility on my shoulders because the Birmingham gang knew your secret so you just need to hide it from them yeah because they were part of that lifestyle yes yeah and did they did they maintain the same level of kindness that you've described if we can I mean kindness is the wrong word but you understand what I mean and that they weren't like the Telford gang or was there a changing point so um some of them remained kind and some of them turned nasty um but then I would have the ones that were nasty so I'd have like a really bad experience with them I might actually get raped by them um and then I would turn back to my friends that were nice to me um and I would stick with them even though they had introduced me to the nasty one if that makes sense but they would say things manipulative things like I I'm sorry that my cousin treated you that way I'm sorry that um that happened I didn't know he was going to do that but please Don't Judge Me by his behavior because it wasn't me it was him um so they would make me feel that I had us to be loyal to them because they were loyal to me because they hadn't been the ones that hurt me it was someone else so although it's a different gang and you had had you moved to Birmingham at this point is that no no you was too coming back you were coming back and forth so even though it was a different gang ultimately it was still the same manipulation to get the same in end game and yeah how how long were you then involved with the Birmingham gang for him gang for on and off for um about five years wow okay um I um for the first year um so I was abused um in um Telford in 2007 and then for the first year after that the whole of 2008 I was deeply involved with them um and then after 2008 my my mental health was really deteriorating I was really suicidal um I really strongly hated myself um and I wanted to try and do something about it I was also learning at University um uh techniques to help mental health yeah um so um I was becoming wiser as to sort of having ideas of how to get out of the gang and that I wanted to be out of the gang and I wanted to do something that didn't make me feel as bad and when you say you knew you wanted to be out of the gang you know I know it's a very very complex topic but I know some people would look and say well why didn't you just leave what stops you just leaving when you're a somebody that's being victimized by a gang like that um so it's it's something I would have thought myself as well like sometimes I was in in surrounded by them in a room and thinking to myself what am I doing here why don't I just leave um I you know and it was another reason that I really hated myself because I could not and I couldn't understand it um but I was it was another form of PTSD it was another symptom of PTSD but I was physically reliving the events or reliving what had happened to me phys like action through my actions and that was making me feel more comfortable than when I was in Essex having terrible flashbacks and feeling very distressed about it so it I mean it's it's hard to just explain psychologically how it works yeah but I would have if I didn't when I tried to stay away from the gang um I would start having nightmares I would start having um the flashbacks again um I would have really distressing episodes where I could barely breathe I was so upset um and when I was in the gang in Birmingham that didn't happen anymore um but it still happened because there was some incidents that were so dangerous I was putting myself in such dangerous situations that I thought one one day I could get killed and what would what would happen then because they wouldn't like this is upsetting to think about but like these friends of mine they would probably Panic or freak out if they killed me by accident or if they kill me on purpose what are they gonna do with my body um they're not gonna call the ambulance they're not gonna call the police and say oh um we've got this dead girl here they're gonna dump me somewhere and um there and then and then my parents are gonna find me dumped somewhere not my parents finding me but like find out that there's been a body found and it's me and um and then my parents will never understand or never know what happened to me so that was a really upsetting thought um and that was the biggest um drive that stopped that made me want to get out of the gang because I did not want that my for my parents to go through that um and I I felt really distressed about the way my life was going as well and I didn't want this it wasn't what I had planned um yes as a as a teenager or you know when you think about um your future this is not what I had planned um and every day I could just see myself potentially becoming a sex worker and that being my life and that's not what I and I don't mean one of the um sex workers that make loads of money I mean like I don't know on the street doing drugs um and it's not what I wanted for my life so it really encouraged me to stay at University and at one time I saw it very very black and white that I was either at University going to become a nurse or or I was going to be a prostitute um and I only had those options available to me wow I mean that's quite when you say there's two options I mean there's just such such Worlds Apart that you were living this incredible double life where the other people at your University that were the same age as you probably had no idea that that was a strong potential outcome for you yeah yeah and what so what it sounds like for a lot of people very understandably remaining in that space it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where you get more and more brainwashed and indoctrinated into that lifestyle so how did you finally decide to move out of that area and I don't know what to call it but you know you you some of these people have been brought to Justice haven't they yes so how did that all come about okay so um after the year of 2008 when I was not having you know I was doing really bad um and then um and then I started to try and get away from the gank um I was managing to go quite a few months um it was like an addiction so it was like um I was going cold turkey and like I would manage to go a few months cold turkey without going back um there was drugs involved as well so perhaps it was drugs pulling me back but I didn't accept that at the time um and um I decided to I reported it in 2010 um what had happened to me in Telford because um I was a third year nursing student by then and um I had learned a lot about risks and what um risks individual people present and what is a risk and you know um so somebody who's commit a sexual offense is at risk of doing it again so there's people that I knew that had commit sexual offenses against me so I have the most proof because it happened against me um and they're at risk of doing it again and some of them I thought or had the feeling that they'd done it before so um I already knew that they probably got other victims so I started to feel like a responsibility on myself as a as in becoming a nurse um that I had a responsibility to the public to at least report it um so I and then I thought if I reported to the police um even if it doesn't go anywhere um at least I can have that burden relieved off myself um so um I went back to the police I reported it um I went to the Essex police Essex police obviously um didn't really know anything about Telford so they took down my details and they took down the details of um the people I was reporting and they um said oh we'll get back to you but don't hold up any hopes because this is historic it had been three years by then um and then um the Telford police got in touch with me quite quickly and they were actually in the middle of an investigation okay um for the men that I had reported right so um Ali Sultan was already had already been reported um and it was already under under investigation similar crimes yes yeah for similar crimes um and um operation chalice had just started taking effect so um they um would um came down as quickly as they could basically to come and interview me um it was probably a response that I wasn't expecting um but they probably weren't expecting me to come forward either they were asking me if um if I knew and they were asking for other people to come forward so they thought that that's why I responded but actually it was completely coincidence okay yeah so I had no idea um and I think my PTSD um was untreated at the time um and I was feeling better because I probably because I wasn't doing drugs anymore and um I was also um staying away from that lifestyle at the time um and um I had no idea how and where I'd been with PTSD um so I didn't realize that I was such a risk of re-traumatization and that's what happened when I reported it to the police they told me about this new in this investigation that was already ongoing then I realized that it was happening to other girls and girls a lot younger than me and for me that was absolutely devastating like I can't actually explain how bad that actually feels because not only do we is it an absolute shock to everyone in the country um I knew what they'd done to me so the thought of them doing it to other children are the girls and girls a lot younger than myself was absolutely heartbreaking I was really hoping that it was just me um and I thought it was me I thought it was me I thought it was my fault I thought I'd done things I didn't not realize that um that children were being treated in the same way by the same man um and I found that really difficult to cope with at the time things my mental health really spiraled um and um I ended up attempting suicide um and it was a it was my first I'd been feeling suicidal for about three years and it was my first big and really my only big suicide attempt and at the time I was how so I think that I was suffering some sort of um some psychotic symptoms some mild psychotic symptoms because I believed that Shamil was had a demon inside him and that when he raped me he had put a demon inside me and when and that demon would make me behave in ways that I would not want to behave in so I in in Humane ways that would actually hurt me um I think you know part of it was actually you know my PTSD and this was my way of explaining it but the at the time that I attempted suicide I thought I was had this urge to go back to the gang which I think was a symptom of like reliving it but I thought it was a demon making me trying to make me go back um and I really did not want to be abused again and I really did not want that life and I thought the only way to stop myself was to kill myself so um it I had a massive um I took a massive overdose um of 58 tablets of code idramal um which made me very sick um I I called a friend because I had this one I lay down to like go to sleep and I just thought what a sad way to end it and then I thought maybe I'd maybe that maybe that me saying what a sad way to end it means that I don't really want to die and then I thought okay I'm very cool my friend so so I called my friend um and she called an ambulance for me and I went to a e and I was very very sick I was very unwell I was um I couldn't stop being sick it was very traumatic um and I thought afterwards what did I have to be afraid of if I'm afraid of this gang I have just realized that I've just proven to myself that I am the most dangerous person to me um I am the one who's just made us an attempt to my life so am I my own attempted murderer if that makes sense like no one else is necessarily attempted to murder me but I have tried to murder myself so I'm actually who else have I got to be afraid of so it in one way it spurred me on to continue to um go ahead with the court case and the investigation and in another way it was bad for me because I realized the um being abused is probably better than being dead so I just went back to the gang um I just did what I was thinking and I just went back and um I don't know if I might have still been a little bit like mentally unwell I think definitely I was because I started to come to like a couple of months later and realized what have I just been doing for the last few months like there were probably loads of other um loads of things happened um I I wrote about some of that in in my book um and um uh I'm very very lucky that to be alive after that but the point that you finally left the Birmingham gang how many people do you think you've been abused by um so um the um the number the number 70 was coined um oh like a long time ago in 2013 when I was um sort of recruited into um speak in a documentary for um the hunt for Britain sex gangs and I had created this map which I which is one of the things that I'd done to try and um visualize it to myself and actually when I'd written it down it was kind of looked like a map of a gang which I didn't expect it to it's like a drug gang you know everybody's connected to everyone else in total there were 70 people on it um and I'd kind of um marked an x on all the ones that I thought were rape and all the ones that I thought were um I was very scared and I changed the I changed the colors to say this is a situation that I was terrified in this is a situation where I was violently raped in and you know there was 70 on there and the um the reporter from my explanation of it was saying you're describing these situations that seem consensual that you describe as consensual but actually they pushed you and coerced you into this so you're describing a gang rape um and that was quite heavy for me but that's how that's how the number 70 sort of came about um but some of it was because I because I was over 18 um by law it would be very complicated to differentiate um the times that I was very vulnerable and a vulnerable adult and therefore could not consent um and the times where I did consent and the times where it was definitely rape and it would be um so I didn't report anyone from the Birmingham gang it would be dangerous too for me because there's so many of them yeah um that if I reported any of them all of them would be against me yeah um and then I'd be at risk if I walked down Birmingham I'm probably at risk anyway um but I um kind of have to ignore that um and live my life um so I do so I won't I I won't show Fear because so far I've had a track record that nobody's nobody's coming threatened made a threat against me so so um I don't I'm not going to worry about it even if other people are worried for me and maybe I should be worried I'm not going to worry because I can't live my life like that um but yeah that's one reason I haven't reported it another reason is because they might not be um they might not have um might not be convicted anyway there's not much evidence it's very difficult um to um find enough evidence for those individual incidents where maybe I can send it to sleep with this man and then the man who had sex with me afterwards I didn't want to sleep with him so that was rape but how are we going to prove that yeah if I just had sexual consented sex with someone else so it was too it's too complicated I think to try that makes a lot of sense but of the ones that you did report in the in the Telford gang yeah how many were imprisoned and what were their sentences yeah so um I um I I actually reported um eight people eight or nine people um only three of them went to court right um and two of them were found guilty um and one of them was found not guilty um um yeah so to um show Shamil and Ali were found guilty um Shamil got um sentenced to 11 years in prison um and um Ali got sentenced to um six years in prison and a I think 11 years on license I think um I might be wrong I've forgotten now um because um Ali then was reported again um by someone else um and he's still in prison at the moment even though he served his sentence for me um but um because he was reported again um he's he's still in prison for another for another sentence basically because he abused so many women um and are the ones that have reported him are just the um uh uh oh nothing in comparison to the amount of people he actually abused yeah yeah um it's quite shocking to hear the story and you know when you get to the bit in the story and you say you thought it was just you because if someone like me has never been around anything like that you just don't imagine it's happening um do you think it's still happening and do you think it's happening more than is reported on you know what's your view on that yeah so it's still happening it's definitely still happening um I think they just find they've just found ways to hide it or ways of threatening their um their victims in in a different way like if you I think if you report like they could they might say things like if you report me it's gonna be it's gonna blow up and it's gonna like in the media and it's gonna be all over it so you so there's more um there's more pressure If you decide to report it um than there was before I mean there was no pressure before because you'd be ignored anyway so it was probably like you might as well report me because they're not going to do anything um in fact some some victims reported it and then were sentenced um were were charged themselves with something um and um and have convictions because of things they did while they were being abused so um or as a result of being abused or a result of like getting upset and smashing something because they were abused and then um which is horrendous horrendous to think about that that the victims are so heavily blamed by society as well as the men who are abusing them um that we will then actually charge them and convict them for something and when you look back over all of your experiences you know what's something you've learned from it when you look back over everything that happened and you've come out of it as a stronger person who now is a um you know just grab yourself earlier as a campaign or would that be the right word um I I don't really know what I would describe myself yes but I um because I I always have these um ideas that I would like to do something um in the media to help people and then I I don't do it because I'm actually very shy and um I um uh don't have I'm trying to fight that confidence still um but I um I really really want to help people I want to use my skills in mental health nursing and the um the the people who I meet who are become my patients um I want to help them and I want to at least them to know that um because I because I've been through Plex trauma that when they've been through complex trauma I can use what I know to help them yeah and I can use this the skills that I've learned in my life as well as the skills that I've learned through training um and actually make make that a comprehensive sort of way of being able to support those people um and the people that I meet through my work um I I try to do things um I'm trying to do more I think I will in the future because I feel like I'm still young um and I've even had a way to go with my own mental health before I've been at a stage where I can properly help people the way I want to um and the way I Envision but I want to help other victims I want to help with the survivors I want to help those girls that no one listens to and I want to help the girls that are judged by everyone um and they're not helped because they're judged and not helped because their behavior has become so complicated and so difficult that other people turn them away when really I know where that where that comes from because even I've struggled with my own behavior and I've had to learn interpersonal skills and um myself to actually overcome that and I want to be able to pass that on and show um other victims and other survivors that actually you can achieve what I have and actually get to a place in your mind and in your life where you're not suffering anymore from your own mental health and from suicidal thoughts and from that worthlessness um I used to think that I was worthless and I used to believe that everybody else was better than me and that I would never amount to anything um and then by um I don't know not by luck by I think by never giving up I have actually come out of the other side of it and I've managed to persevere and I didn't die when I took that overdose and um I actually made it through the storm just by getting up every day and living and carrying on and then time sort of did the rest um so I I want other people to believe that they can be something and that they can actually um over overcome what what the what the evil people who have abused them wanted them to believe about themselves um because it is possible and I don't think that I'm a special case that um I'm the only one who can survive or I'm the only one that can have this um like overcome my mental health issues and you know I want everyone to be able to do what I've done and basically um yeah so um I I that's why I try and pass it on to other people and pass it on to my patients as well that's a lovely answer and you say that you're not a special case but I think you do really come across as a special person I think you're someone that we've met previously and you're someone that we've talked about a lot uh you come across as very strong very articulate and um I'm really grateful to you to come and talk to us today about a topic that's really hard to talk about but I can tell that the reason you want to do it is because you want to create positive change yeah so thank you for your time oh um yeah you're welcome you're welcome um it's a um it's a pleasure to be here because um I really want um to for you know I I hope from these interviews um with with a loud Bible that I can actually reach more um victims and survivors and let them know that um there's someone out there who understands you and there's someone out there in a position to help who is trying to help um and um they don't have to be the ones to come forward and talk about it I'll talk about it I'll talk about the horrible things that happened to me embarrass myself but not embarrass myself um so that other people don't feel that they have to come forward unless they feel comfortable too um yeah um it's not for the trolls she'll give us a little I think that's yeah I looked to the side of the Qatar and she had a jar with things in it clitoris Libya model everything that she has cut previously I looked at it and I thought I'm gonna die and then being sewn the one experience that I don't think I will ever forget

Channel: LADbible TV

Views: 334,205

Keywords: the lad bible, lad bible, lad, bible, videos, viral videos, viral, funny, comedy, funny videos, documentaries, exclusives, interviews

Id: fijVxlPLbA8

Length: 102min 11sec (6131 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2023