A grooming gang survivor was returned to a property where she had been raped after police officers accepted her mistaken claim that she was 18, despite records identifying her as an under-age victim of child sexual exploitation.
Fiona Goddard was 16 when officers found her at the Bradford address in 2010, two years after she had been groomed by a group of men. Seven men of Pakistani heritage were reportedly inside, with drugs and empty alcohol bottles strewn across the room.
Ms Goddard, who had been given drugs and alcohol, was placed in a police car and told officers she was an adult. When she was taken back, one officer allegedly told the men: “She says she’s over-age – enjoy your night, lads.”
She had first been groomed from the age of 14 after running away from a children’s home in Bradford in 2008. Her ordeal later involved being taken to Blackburn, Rotherham, Rochdale, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Oldham, and she says she was raped and abused by at least 50 men.
Police treatment of Fiona Goddard
Returning her to the property was not the only alleged failure in the handling of her case. Ms Goddard became pregnant by one of her attackers at 15 and gave birth shortly after her 16th birthday, but her baby was taken from her and placed for adoption after she was told she could not keep her daughter.
She said the abuse continued for a further two years and that police repeatedly blamed her for what was happening. The gang also intimidated her into silence by showing her violent videos depicting people’s skulls being crushed, she said.
“Over the years from 2008 and 2013 I was found in cars with men and they [police] said I was the reason society was going downhill by putting working class men in danger,” she said.
“I was called a child prostitute. I was accused of exchanging sex in return for gifts by 14. And described as running a brothel by 17.”
Ms Goddard said officers repeatedly described her as “streetwise” and suggested that, despite being a missing person, she could look after herself. She said her status was later downgraded before someone identified that she had been on a child sexual exploitation watchlist.
“There was a lot of stuff like that where it wasn’t taken seriously,” she said.
Grooming gang convictions
Nine members of the gang were eventually prosecuted in 2019 and sentenced to more than 130 years in total. Ms Goddard said she had fought “tooth and nail” for the case to be brought after reporting it to police repeatedly over five years.
Basharat Khaliq, known as Bash, was convicted of five rapes and assault by penetration and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Saeed Akhtar was convicted of rape and two offences of causing or inciting child prostitution and was jailed for 20 years.
Naveed Akhtar and Parvaze Ahmed were each jailed for 17 years after convictions for rape. Izar Hussain received 16 years after being found guilty of rape and attempted rape.
Kieran Harris was sentenced to 17 years for two rapes, while Fahim Iqbal received seven years for aiding and abetting rape. Mohammed Usman was jailed for 17 years for two rapes, and Zeeshan Ali received 18 months after being convicted of sexual assault.
Ms Goddard later waived her right to anonymity because she did not want others to regard what happened to her as a source of shame.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.
An analysis known as The Network Map claims that at least 60 police officers were involved in the wider grooming gang scandal, either directly or by failing to act on reports of sexual crimes. The database was compiled from criminal trial transcripts, police and local authority records, survivors’ accounts and media reports, and identifies more than 1,000 alleged perpetrators and more than 3,000 links between them.
A review by Baroness Louise Casey found that Asian Muslim men were overwhelmingly responsible for the abuse of thousands of mostly white girls.
