‘Terrified’ victim of Hull grooming gang beaten and burned during violent rape
An alleged victim of a Hull grooming gang has told how she was bitten, beaten and burned during a violent rape – and that police and her school had concerns she was being abused but failed to stop it.
Warning: This article includes graphic content
The teenage girl’s mother was so worried after her daughter repeatedly went missing with the men that she placed a tracker in her bag.
She is the second young woman to tell Sky News of her ordeal at the hands of grooming gangs allegedly still at large in the East Yorkshire city.
Several young women have told Sky News they were abused by grooming gangs in Hull
The first woman, Sarah (which is not her real name), previously told how she was raped by around 150 men from the age of 13.
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‘I was raped by 150 men’
Sky News has been given exclusive access to diaries and other documents that appear to support the claims of the second alleged victim, Anna (also not her real name).
Both Sarah and Anna have accused at least one of the same men of rape.
A two-year investigation by Humberside Police stalled after officers concluded there was not enough evidence to take the case to court.
But after seeing the evidence gathered by Sky News, former police chief Jim Gamble said it was “time to declare war” on criminals getting away with “rape by appointment”.
The dossier of evidence compiled by Anna includes her teenage diary, the account of her school welfare officer and images of bruising and strangulation, which she says was caused by her abusers.
Anna suffered bruising to her neck
Anna’s diary, which was seized by police but later given back to her, appears to offer insight into the world of a young abuse victim.
“I feel like I’m living a double life,” she wrote.
“Normal Anna spends time with friends and family and goes out. A normal teenager – this is the Anna most people see.”
But underneath she tells of a different Anna.
“Scared, terrified and abused Anna,” she wrote.
“The Anna that feels controlled like a puppet.”
Anna drew an image depicting a puppet in her diary
Anna was 16 when the abuse started – so during the police investigation there was a greater need to prove she was coerced by the men.
However, that evidence does seem to exist.
Firstly, she took photos of the bruising on her neck and arms, which match injuries she mentions in her diary.
Anna also suffered bruising to her arm
She also regularly updated her school’s welfare officer who made her own log on what was happening.
Over the course of 18 months there are 290 logs, mostly referring to concerns about child exploitation.
In the logs, Anna constantly refers to the fear she has of the men she is seeing when she goes missing from school.
An extract from 22 January 2019 reads: “Anna had a small red mark on left cheek, I could see blood stains on her left knee.
“She knows what they do is ‘harm’ but she ‘normalises’ it. (She says) If she ignores their calls / messages, then there is more harm.”
A school log noted an injury on Anna’s face
In the log, Anna’s teacher notes seeing messages saying: “‘I’ll actually kill you’ and ‘Don’t ignore me’ from a man who works in a local takeaway shop and has been outside school.”
In total, Anna provided more than a thousand pages of evidence which Sky News has shared with Mr Gamble, the former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.
A school log noted a death threat sent to Anna
He told Sky News: “Having looked at the information that is there, there is no true consent that I can see. And anyone who just looks at a few of these papers will see that.
“Consent needs to be freely given it needs to be a true consent. It doesn’t come with threats to kill your parents. It doesn’t come with threats to be waiting outside your school.”
It is clear Anna’s school and police had real-time knowledge that she was repeatedly going missing, and there were multiple concerns she was being intimidated and abused yet they seem unable to stop it.
Anna’s mother told Sky News she was so concerned she placed a tracker in her daughter’s bag and would sometimes email the police with information about where she was.
Anna spoke to Sky News about the sexual abuse she suffered
She said on one occasion Anna was picked up by police in the company of older men and the family received threats when her daughter started resisting the gang.
“We’ve had the odd few cars outside the house, with Asian men actually looking in,” Anna’s mother said.
“And they’ve messaged Anna saying: ‘I’m outside your house’, which was quite frightening for Anna as well as myself.”
Anna’s mother said she also saw threatening Snapchat messages including one that read: “If you don’t come with us tonight, you s**g, I will do whatever to you, or I will kill your parents”.
“There was just a lot of threatening messages, very nasty messages towards Anna,” she added.
The abuse is first logged in an entry in Anna’s diary on 1 November 2018, when she describes a violent sexual assault from someone she says was an older boy at school.
Anna wrote: “Physical abuse: bitten, hit/slapped, dragged by legs, pinned down, hand over mouth, spat on, burnt, drink thrown at me, choked, neck locked tight.”
She continued: “Rape… I can’t write anymore yet, too fresh.”
Anna described being beaten and burnt during a violent rape
After this, a group of different older men seem to take control of her life.
She was contacted with explicit requests and her account tells of a man taking her to a forest, strangling her and threatening to kill her.
Anna told Sky News: “The main thing that was in my head was if I don’t do this something worse is going to happen. So, I’ll have to go.
“I felt I was protecting my family by going back. And it’s just the whole cycle you’re in, it’s hard to get out of.
“When you’re so far into it, you’re just normalised to it
“When no-one’s offering you help, you kind of think ‘well it can’t be that bad if no one’s bothered’.”
Her frustration comes off the page of her diary in emotions, poems, lists of days when she is missing or abused and graphic accounts of the attacks.
Anna noted in her diary that ‘one day I will have a body you never touched’
Amid notes about school homework, there are thoughts like this: “Today in science class I learned every cell in our body is replaced every 7 years. How lovely it is to know one day I will have a body you never touched.”
Mr Gamble describes the passage as one of the most powerful things he has read in his career.
He said “We’re almost at the point where we need to declare war on this type of behaviour, we need to say it as a priority.
“It’s not just about exploitation, it is about rape by appointment. It is about brutal individuals who are hurting our children.”
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‘I was sold into the sex trade’
The diaries also offer an insight into the brainwashing that is part of the grooming process.
Sometimes Anna thinks the men love her and she expresses concern about them. She seems wired to their control.
Jo Wagstaff, a psychotherapist who has worked with victims of the gangs including Anna, told Sky News: “I think deep down, these girls know that it’s not okay, especially at the point where they’re being hurt.
“In the beginning, I think there is an element that it feels like they’re in a friendship or a relationship, or that they’re loved and cared for by these people. And that that’s very real to them.
“That’s where the brainwashing comes in. In that, ‘actually, I’ve done this for you, and I’ve given you everything’. So now you need to pay me back.'”
Humberside Police have told Sky News that following arrests and the seizure of 150 devices from suspects and after following thousands of lines of inquiry, they have not reached the evidence threshold to take Anna or Sarah’s case to court.
However, they added that if more victims or witnesses come forward, they would be keen to interview them.
In the final report in this series, Sky News will meet Kate – another alleged victim – who it seems was completely off the police radar and has not yet been interviewed by them.
Changes to how death certificates are issued in England and Wales have made the grieving process more “stressful”, according to bereaved families.
Anne Short died on New Year’s Eve, only a few months after she was diagnosed with cancer.
Her son Elliot, 30, from Newport, South Wales, says the grieving process was made harder after having to wait eight weeks to hold her funeral.
“Quite frankly, it’s ridiculous, when you’re already going through all this pain and suffering as a family,” he told Sky News.
“You can’t move on, you can’t do anything, you can’t arrange anything, you can’t feel that they’re at peace, you can’t put yourself at peace, because of a process that’s been put in that nobody seems to know anything about at the moment.”
That process has been introduced by the government to address “concerns” about how causes of death were previously scrutinised, following high-profile criminal cases such as those of Harold Shipman and Lucy Letby.
Up until last September, causes of death could be signed off by a GP, but now they have to be independently scrutinised by a medical examiner, before a death certificate can be issued.
Anne Short
‘I felt helpless’
Mr Short said he was ringing “twice a day” for a progress update, but that it was “going through too many sets of hands”.
Until the death certificate was issued, Ms Short’s body could not be released into the care of the funeral director.
“The main stress for me was knowing that she was up there [at the hospital] and I couldn’t move her, so I felt helpless, powerless,” he said.
“I felt like I’d let her down in a lot of ways. I know now, looking back, that there’s nothing that we could have done, but at the time it was adding a lot of stress. I just wanted her out of there.”
Elliot Short had to wait eight weeks to hold his mother’s funeral
‘Something has to be done’
Mr Short fears there’s a risk the new process might defeat its purpose.
“There’s other people that I know that have lost since, where it’s been in a care home or something like that, where they haven’t been happy with the care they’ve had, but they haven’t raised that because you’re in this bubble of grief and you just want to get it done,” he said.
“Something has to be done about that because I think it just drags on the grief and there’s obviously a danger then of it being against the reasons why they’re trying to do it.”
Arrangements after the death of his father less than two years ago was a “much easier process”, according to Mr Short.
“I lost my father as well 15 months before, so we went through the process prior to this coming in and we had the death certificate, he died at home, but we had it within three days,” he added.
Elliot Short
‘State of limbo’
James Tovey is the sixth generation of his family running Tovey Bros, a funeral director in Newport.
He told Sky News that the delays were having a “huge impact” on the business and that the families they serve were being “left in a state of limbo” for weeks after their bereavement.
“I would say that most funerals will take place perhaps two to four weeks after the person’s passed away, whereas now it’s much more like four to six weeks, so it is quite a significant difference,” he said.
“It’s one thing on top of an already distressing time for them and we’re frustrated and upset for [the families] as much as anybody else and it’s just annoying that we can’t do anything about it.”
James Tovey
Mr Tovey said that the reform was “very useful” and he remained supportive of it.
“It’s just the delays. I’m sure they can do something about that over time, but it’s just waiting for that to happen, and I wish that could be addressed sooner rather than later,” he added.
“It does put pressure on other people, it’s not just ourselves, it’s pressure on the hospitals, on crematoria, on the registrar service and everyone else involved in our profession.
“But of course all of us we’re there to serve the families, and we’re just upset for them and wish we could do more to help.”
The organisation representing funeral directors has called for “urgent action”
The National Association of Funeral Directors said some areas of England and Wales are experiencing much shorter delays than others, but has called for “urgent action”.
Rachel Bradburne, its director of external affairs, said the system was “introduced for all the right reasons” but that it was “not working as well as we need it to”.
“Funeral directors are relaying stories of delays, frustration, and bottlenecks on a daily basis, and urgent action is required to review and recalibrate the new system,” she added.
‘Unintended consequences’
Dr Roger Greene is the deputy chief executive of bereavement charity AtALoss.
He told Sky News that the delays were “one of the unintended consequences of what’s a well-intended reform of a system”.
“What has actually happened is that the number of deaths now requiring independent scrutiny has trebled,” he said.
“So in England and Wales in 2023, the last full year of data, there were nearly 200,000 deaths reported to a coroner, whereas there were 600,000 deaths.
“Now, what is the change in the process is that all deaths now need to be reported for independent scrutiny.”
Dr Roger Greene
Dr Greene said there may be ways the system could be “tweaked a little bit”, such as giving medical examiners the ability to issue an interim death certificate.
“We believe that people can process grief well if they’re given the opportunity and they’ve got a proper understanding,” he added.
“But the systems that we have in the country need to be able to work as well with that diversity of faith and culture.”
‘Vital improvements’
Jason Shannon, lead medical examiner for Wales, told Sky News he recognised “the importance of a seamless, accurate and timely death certification process”.
“Medical examiners are one part of the wider death certification process and were introduced to give additional independent safeguards as well as to give bereaved people a voice, which they hadn’t had before,” he added.
“Medical examiners have no role in determining where the body of a family’s relative is cared for and except in a minority of deaths where a coroner needs to be involved, that decision should be one that a family is fully empowered to make in a way that is best for them.”
A Welsh government spokesperson said they “would like to apologise to any families who have experienced delays in receiving death certificates”.
The government said it was working with the lead medical examiner and the NHS in Wales “to understand where the delays are” and how to provide bereaved families with “additional support”.
Read more from Sky News:
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A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said it recognised there were “some regional variations in how long it takes to register a death”.
They added that the changes to the death certification process “support vital improvements to patient safety and aim to provide comfort and clarity to the bereaved”.
Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled as part of the survey by the NASUWT teaching union, and nearly three in five (59%) of teachers said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
The findings have been published during the union’s annual conference, which is taking place in Liverpool this weekend.
One motion that is set to be debated at the conference calls on the union’s executive to work with teachers “to assess the risk that far-right and populist movements pose to young people”.
Andrew Tate was referenced by a number of teachers who took part in the survey, who said he had negative influence on male pupils.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”.
Another teacher said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils at an all-boys school] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine'”.
While another respondent to the survey said their school had experienced some incidents of “derogatory language towards female staff…as a direct result of Andrew Tate videos”.
Last month, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hosted a discussion in Downing Street on how to prevent young boys from being dragged into a “whirlpool of hatred and misogyny”.
The talks were with the creators of Netflix drama Adolescence, which explored so-called incel culture.
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Starmer meets Adolescence creators
‘An urgent need for action’
Patrick Roach, the union’s general secretary, said “misogyny, racism and other forms of prejudice and hatred…are not a recent phenomenon”.
He said teachers “cannot be left alone to deal with these problems” and that a “multi-agency response” was needed.
“There is an urgent need for concerted action involving schools, colleges and other agencies to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists,” Mr Roach added.
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A spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said: “Education can be the antidote to hate, and the classroom should be a safe environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and where critical thinking is encouraged.
“That’s why we provide a range of resources to support teachers to navigate these challenging issues, and why our curriculum review will look at the skills children need to thrive in a fast-changing online world.”
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