CCTV footage shows teenage girl being groomed moments before being raped
The 13-year-old was abused at a hotel in Bradford after going missing
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Shocking CCTV footage broadcast last night shows the moment a 13-year-old girl was groomed before being raped.
The girl, named only as Marta, is seen in the lobby of a hotel in Bradford with an Asian man, who then leads her upstairs.
The awful scenes were televised as part of BBC Two’s Police Under Pressure. Detective Constable Karen Cocker, of South Yorkshire Police, is seen viewing the footage as she leads the search for the missing teenager.
In the clip, the girl is seen embracing the man.
A member of staff at the hotel remarks that Marta looks as though “she wants to be there”.
However Cocker points out: “I think you’ve just got to bear in mind her age. She’s 13.”
Upstairs the pair are joined by two other men and the girl is then passed from room to room.
Filmed before the Jay report child abuse revelations became public, the programme follows South Yorkshire Police over 12 months as they try to tackle child sexual exploitation.
It seeks to highlight the complexity in such cases and the difficulty of obtaining a prosecution. Deputy Chief Constable Andy Holt says: “We accept the phenomenon where sometimes the victims don’t recognise themselves as victims – but nevertheless they are victims.”
The Jay report revealed how abusers exploited 1,400 children from Rotherham over 16 years. It was found that gangs of Asian men groomed, abused and trafficked vulnerable children while police and the council ignored reports and warnings about what was happening and failed to take the victims seriously.
The extent of the exploitation and links to wider criminality were highlighted in three reports in the early 2000s but police failed to act on the crimes and the findings were largely ignored by the council, the inquiry team was told.
South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Shaun Wright resigned in the wake of the scandal; he was replaced last month by Alan Billings.