Grooming gangs. Where are the parents?

A lot of the girls were in care I believe.

Weren't all or the vast majority of them in care?

Care! What care? Not good enough, The so called carers should bear some responsibility.

I asked this on FB and was ridiculed. The parents, carers and children's home staff missed on their duties

Girls in care are sometimes quite feral. It's hard to lock them up as they would never learn that way.

Some of these girls were in care because they were beyond the control of their parents, which is why the Care Homes involved need to be called to account. Some parents did attempt to prevent their girls from being used this way but were powerless to prevent them, which is where the failure of the police to take action has to be investigated.
Some girls were aware of what they were doing, when they started, but the fact remains all these girls were below the age of consent, and all were vulnerable. Their behaviour made them easy prey for exploiters, and provided an excuse for their claims not to be taken seriously.

Some parents were involved, they were threatened too, they did their best to try and extracate their girls, in some cases going to the police with their children, it was all dismissed. There was scant help the blame boomeranged back to the girls themselves feckless, life style choice etc. Often they were just in too deep. One girl perished in a house fire, along with mother and sister, started by her abuser.

Read Maggie Oliver’s book it is revealing.

The girls - children - were already vulnerable and being taken into care isn’t something LA’s do at the drop of a hat. Girls came from all backgrounds, but for whatever reason were deemed beyond parental (often just Mum) control. I’m sure some were very concerned by the issue of a care order, but others would be pleased to see the back of their ‘problem’ girl. Back in the day, children were often placed in a care home miles away to discourage abusive parents from visiting and on other occasions, parents were asked simply not to visit to give the child time to settle in.
Some girls would be truanting and rebellious, possibly looking and trying to act beyond their years and the lookout for the grooming gangs would know where to find them and make an approach through an innocent meeting - possibly a young member, driving a flash car, offering lifts and then giving gifts convincing the girls that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, in a deep and meaning relationship. Then, those gifts might escalate to drink and drugs and the more vulnerable the girl the more she’d want to accept them, to keep this lovely young man - her own real boyfriend, someone who tells her he loves her, that she’s the one, his one and only. It’s possible that other girls in care would be jealous of her, so the invitation would be made to include her - another recruit to the vile gangs.

The argument about the children in care was that care homes are not prisons - but these were under age children. Surely those running the care homes should have been asking why young girls were being picked up by older men, not related to them. They failed in their main job to protect the children in their care!

I worked for a Council which had a policy of picking up children from their homes in taxis and bringing them to the unit where I worked. They were already vulnerable for all sorts of reasons- we could see what was going on, but no one one cared and that's the bottom line. We were considered a nuisance and in the end lost our jobs through being outspoken.
No one cared about the children then and to be honest they don't care about them now either.

Parents did report to the authorities but were ignored.

silversurf

These poor girls seem to have no parental guidance or discipline. Why are social services and the police not involved at an earlier stage.
If my daughter was associating with such people , staying out till all hours and wandering all over the country I would certainly be reporting to the authorities. Yet no one seems to mention them.

It’s obvious from your OP that you havnt read or watched anything that puts the lie to your no parental control or guidance statement.

Perhaps you could watch this father and learn some facts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCr5FEqN2o

petra

silversurf

These poor girls seem to have no parental guidance or discipline. Why are social services and the police not involved at an earlier stage.
If my daughter was associating with such people , staying out till all hours and wandering all over the country I would certainly be reporting to the authorities. Yet no one seems to mention them.

It’s obvious from your OP that you havnt read or watched anything that puts the lie to your no parental control or guidance statement.

Perhaps you could watch this father and learn some facts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCr5FEqN2o

I forgot to ask if you have seen the program 3 girls.

If the girls were in care would not them drinking be questioned

And therein lies the problem Anniebach

Totally neglect and disregard for their welfare by those entrusted to care for them. In my view that’s tantamount to criminality.

Let’s stop questioning the children involved in this and direct our attention and focus on getting justice for these young people.

It's easy to blame the parents, but others who have commented on here are right - if you delve into the deeper facts here, you'll see that many of the parents tried time and time again to help their girls, and their concerns were often dismissed out of hand.
Next door to us is a residential home where several young and vulnerable teens live and the police are never away from there, either bringing back girls who've run away or got into trouble. The staff are very limited in what they can physically do to stop them - they can't lay a finger on them, and the girls know this and take full advantage of it.

Some of these girls were still in primary school. The adult men knew they were doing wrong. The police, social workers, teachers councils and any others involved should have helped these poor children and not turned the other way or blamed the victims.

Maybe there was a single parent who wasn't coping. Or the child was in the care system. I've seen interviews where fathers tried to rescue their daughters who had been trafficked to different towns. The police threatened to prosecute the fathers.

Absolutely sickening.

There is a great deal of naivety here, these girls were often picked out because of their low self esteem and vulnerability.

Many were in the care system, the groomers were skilled, they targeted children’s homes.

Even girls from caring homes were sucked in as they were given alcohol and drugs, they were addicted and in the viscous circle.

The men would not be deterred by an angry parent.

The men may have been deterred if they were handcuffed and marched off in front of their families and neighbours.

Parental support needs to start much much earlier and there is also a great need for youth clubs or similar where girls can gather when there’s no one at home and with luck join in activities.
Often the girls don’t know the real names of their ‘boyfriends’ so even if they can be persuaded to talk to the police nothing can be done.
It isn’t the case that social workers don’t care. Those are unwarranted accusations. They cannot lock the girls up and they can’t stop them going out. The homes are always full to capacity with teenagers with complex needs.
It’s facile to say ‘if this were my daughter’. It couldn’t possibly be. These are girls who have no one to teach them to keep themselves safe until it’s too late, and this is why there needs to be more and better advice targeted at parents.

Indeed - my friend's daughter (then just turned 14) was groomed by an older man who had her completely brainwashed into thinking they were in a genuine relationship and he was the only one who truly loved her. No matter what my friend did, her daughter kept going back to him time and time again - she would sneak out in the middle of the night and so on. These men know exactly how to seek out the vulnerable and prey on them. It's very easy to say 'if that was my daughter' - until it happens to you.

...And of course at that age, young people are susceptible, they haven't developed guile and nous. In a similar vein it was why so many young women were drawn to ISIS, they were also groomed.

I’m not defending or minimising poor practice but as sago commented earlier, there are some naive and judgemental comments here

It’s so easy to blame the parents, police, health, social workers, residential social workers if you have no experience of the complexity involved in trying to keep children, especially adolescents safe