Through the testimony of survivors, campaigners, and whistleblowers, Britain’s Forgotten Girls uncovers why and how this exploitation has been allowed to continue for over two decades.
Britain’s Forgotten Girls is on BBC Two at 9pm Wednesday 9 September and is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
Survivors tell the BBC about their abuse by drugs gangs
For years drugs gangs in cities and towns across the UK have been targeting young girls for sexual and criminal exploitation.
Evidence has been mounting for two decades. Yet, while authorities have been warned repeatedly, the same failures continue with thousands of girls still believed to be at risk from exploitation.
In a new documentary by the BBC Current Affairs unit, we hear from five survivors telling their stories for the first time, four of whom have chosen to reveal their identity.
Christine was 13 when it started
The BBC speaks to Christine, whose abuse began when she was just 13.
She moved from London to Coventry in her early teens which was when the abuse began.
“Looking back, I think the move threw me off a lot”, she says.
“In school everybody already had their friendship groups because of how late I’d moved in.”
“So, within school, I didn’t really feel like I had friends.”
Christine says her abuser found her via a group chat.
“He popped up to me outside of the chat and he was just talking to me…he said that he wanted to meet in person. So, we met.”
“I remember him walking through the doors…when he walked through the door, I was like, oh my gosh, that’s a grown man.”
“I was 13 and he was 23”, Christine says.
On her 14th birthday Christine recounts how he asked her to sleep with his friends to help him out.
“I felt disgusting”, Christine says.
Soon this became an expectation. Christine was forced to sleep with many different gang members. “After that, I’ve lost count of how many times”, she says.
“Some were his friends, some were his age, some looked older. I don’t know who they were.”
Things soon became physically abusive. Christine at one point had her ribs fractured.
Christine was sexually and physically abused for over eight years and says police and social services persistently failed to help her.
“I had social work involvement for a long time, and over the years, they came to know that I had an abusive relationship with a boyfriend who was older than me. But nothing was really done.”
Christine says that she did not get the feeling that police cared about the fact she was being abused or sexually exploited.
“I sat for hours and hours in interviews… but the moment I told them about the drugs and the houses, everything shifted,” she says.
Little old me coming and saying, ‘this is the abuse I’m going through’, wasn’t enough.
Holly was 12
The BBC speaks to another survivor, Holly, who also says the police failed to help her.
Holly was taken into care at the age of 12 and found herself selling drugs in Manchester city centre. Between the ages of 12 and 16, she recounts being sexually assaulted numerous times by the members of a gang.
“I was made to sleep with different men,” Holly says.
After a while it just became normal to me.
She says she convinced herself that this meant she was wanted, and part of a family that cared for her.
She was also used as a courier by the gang, running drugs to places including the Isle of Man, Newcastle, Wales and London.
The work could lead her into dangerous situations, she says, and she was also sexually assaulted by drug users.
It is a UK-wide issue, distinct from grooming gangs
Connie Muttock, Director of Policy and Public Affairs for the children’s charity Centre for Young Lives says “The abuse and exploitation of girls in drug gangs is a widespread UK-wide issue.”
“This isn’t about a particular city or area, particular demographic groups. As long as we’ve had drug gangs in this country, we have had girls being abused and coerced within them. What’s even more shocking is that this has been going on for years.”
It is a distinct issue from grooming gangs, she says.
“For grooming gangs, the primary purpose is often the sexual exploitation of those girls, but the primary purpose of a drug gang is to make money off selling drugs and other criminal activity.”
Girls are brought in to help make money, says Muttock, and they are also often sexually exploited at the same time.
Annie’s abuse started at 14
The BBC also hears from Annie, whose abuse began when she was 14.
Annie grew up in Eltham in south-east London.
When she was 14, she was introduced to three boys who were part of a gang in the local area. The boys were from the Ferrier Estate.
The gang controlled the estate, selling drugs and engaging in various criminal activities. Annie was raped by the three older boys.
The boys took pictures of her and later said they would distribute them if she did not have sex with other associates.
Annie’s abuse at the hands of the gang continued for years.
Those pictures were later put online. Annie’s school was informed and they notified the police. However, those that abused Annie were never brought to justice.
“I have a letter here that was written by the police”, Annie says.
“It states here that the particular reasons in this case that have prevented me referring it to the CPS are as follows. On the evidence available, there is not a realistic prospect of a conviction in this case, therefore I have closed the investigation.”
The fact that they did nothing, really made me feel like it wasn’t abuse.
It made me carry a lot of shame. Made me feel like it was my fault.
A 2012 inquiry was dismissed as ‘hysterical’
In 2012, sexual exploitation of children in gangs was the subject of an inquiry by the then-Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England, Sue Berelowitz.
It covered cities, towns as well as local authorities that were largely rural, and found the abuse crossed all cultural and ethnic groups.
The inquiry found that more than 16,500 children had shown signs of being at risk, but the findings were met with a mixed response. A senior government source told the BBC at the time that the report’s language was “hysterical”.
Professor Carlene Firmin, who carried out research for the inquiry, accepts that data collection is challenging but believes it was more convenient for the government to question the findings, because it lacked policy to deal with the problem.
“There was definitely resistance in government. You don’t want to hear that thousands of children are at risk of being sexually exploited across England with various different forms of exploitation that you don’t have a policy to support and is going to require a load of resource”, Carlene says.
The government finally acknowledged the problem in 2015, but focussed on male victims
In 2015, reports of children being targeted by gangs and used to transport drugs across the country pushed the government and police to take action.
For the first time, the exploitation of children in drug gangs was a major focus for policy makers.
However, the response at the time was to focus on boys and young men, while the experiences of girls and young women remained marginalised.
The result was many thousands of girls continued to be abused, when action could have been taken sooner to protect them.
A new investigation in 2025 failed to focus on drugs gangs
In 2025, Baroness Louise Casey was asked by the government to investigate the nature, scale and profile of group-based child sexual abuse offending. While drug-dealing street gangs featured in her work, they did not form a significant part of the report. In her remarks to Parliament on the publication of Baroness Casey’s review in 2025, the then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper noted that she did not believe that this kind of exploitation had been sufficiently investigated.
Frontline workers believe that tens of thousands of girls are currently at risk of being sexually and criminally exploited by gangs in the UK.
“We did not always get it right”
In response to the film, Acting Chief Constable Rebecca Riggs, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Lead for Child Protection, Abuse and Investigations said:
Hearing the experiences of the women featured in this programme is devastating, and I recognise the lasting impact that both the offending itself and their interactions with authorities can have on victims and survivors.
Where people felt, they were not listened to, were not believed, or did not receive the response they needed, that can compound the trauma they have already experienced. I am deeply sorry for that. I am sorry to those who felt unheard, to those who did not receive the service they should have expected, and to those whose trust in policing was damaged as a result.
We did not always get it right, and where we failed victims, we continue to acknowledge it and learn from it.
Whilst it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases, some of those referenced may already be included within Operation Beaconport, the national investigation launched following the Casey Review. Others may potentially fall within the scope of the Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel (CSARP), which provides an independent process to review whether opportunities to investigate may have been missed.
Our focus remains on supporting victims and survivors, pursuing offenders wherever possible, and ensuring policing continues to learn from the past so that every victim receives the professional, compassionate and thorough response they deserve.
A BBC Press release. Wednesday 9 September at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer
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