Samantha Smith: Advocacy Against Grooming Gangs

Brilliant guest today is a journalist and when I introduce her, I should make clear, she's not Sam Smith, she's Samantha Smith. Samantha Smith, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you for having me. It's really good to have you on the show. We've got lots to talk about. Before we do, and in fact, help us set it up by telling us your story. Who are you? How are you? Where you are? What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us? Yeah, of course. I am 20 years old. I'm from, I was originally born in Surrey, but I moved to Telford in the West Midlands when I was very young. I I sort of fell into this line of work when I was 17. I had always been interested in politics and current affairs, but when I was 17 in the general election 2019, I helped to run my local MP's election campaign. And from that, I continued to get involved in local politics. When schools closed in 2020, in March 2020, I was 17. And I come from a disadvantaged background, so I'm legally estranged from my parent. I was homeless from the age of 16 legally. I was under social services, you know, sofa staff for about 16 months, if I'm remembering rightly. Moving from sleeping bags to sofas every night, sitting in McDonald's and nursing a cup of coffee until 6am to get the school bus in the morning. But I... I've always been on Twitter and I wrote a tweet in August 2020 about the cancellation of exams and the impact it would have on disadvantaged students, the way that young people were being judged based on their postcode rather than their potential. And that was picked up by a spectator journalist who asked if I'd be interested in writing a piece for the publication. And from there, it sort of snowballed. And now... here I am here I am today well you've got an astonishing CV for someone who's 20 years old so very impressive and kudos to you and one of the things you didn't mention is one of the the big things that I think also propelled your sort of role as a commentator was your commentary on the grooming gangs and all of that because it's something that you were personally affected by as well yes so as I said I'm I grew up in Telford in the West Midlands which is some of your your viewers I'm sure will be aware is One of the key towns, I suppose, in the national child sexual exploitation scandal, over 1,000 girls fell victim to organised grooming gangs in Telford over a course of around 30 years. I personally was groomed and abused for nearly a decade, from the ages of 5 to about 14. I didn't come forward to anyone. With the abuse I experienced until I was 16, I then went through the justice system, was sort of chewed up and spat back out, as many young girls are. I remember, I'll never forget being told by a social worker, if you were physically abused, why were there no bruises? That's a comment that really stuck with me. And I think when for a long time I wasn't aware that there were other girls in my position, there were other girls that had been sexually abused, that had been groomed, that had... had had such a horrendous experience and so when everything began began to come out in in 2018 2019 on the grooming scandal on the the the culture of exploitation ignorance and and silence in towns like Telford it struck home for me and I first spoke about my story and my experience in 2020 That's when I went public with it, I suppose. And I have worked my hardest to bring awareness to the issue, to amplify survivors'voices, and to just really keep the conversation in the media attention, because so many girls like me have been disenfranchised and marginalized and silenced by those in power. So without people willing to speak up, whether it's anonymously or showing their faces, I waive my right to anonymity. Perpetrators, groomers, rapists, grooming gangs, they're going to be able to continue to thrive and continue to groom, rape, abuse, exploit other little girls. So that's why I suppose I chose to speak out. And we've had a survivor of the grooming gangs on the show, Dr. Ella Hill. I don't know if you're familiar with her, if you saw that interview, but she was anonymized. And so you're very courageous to talk about it in public the way that you do. And I'm curious because one of the things I've discovered after... We published that interview. I contacted every journalist I could and I went, look, watch this interview. Why don't you write something about this? And they just, they were not interested. Why do you think that is? It's the age old, the age old issue of cultural sensitivity, I would say. People find it a lot easier to ignore victims than they do to go after the perpetrators. We saw it with local councils, with social services, with the police. the Crown Prosecution Service, with mainstream media, with the government, the list goes on. Those in positions of power and authority don't want to have this conversation because it exposes their own failings. It exposes the culture of ignorance and silence and victim blaming that was perpetrated over decades. You know, young girls have been trying to speak out. This isn't something new. This isn't a... a new occurrence of all of a sudden victims and survivors coming out of the woodworks and wanting to share their stories. No, they went to sexual health clinics, they went to the police, they went to their teachers, their social workers, and they were ignored at every turn because they were viewed as second class victims. And those in positions of authority were scared about the implications of accusing, in the case of grooming gangs, particularly, predominantly Pakistani men. of being rapists and of raping predominantly white working class girls it's far easier to pivot the conversation away from from victims and survivors because they are traditionally disenfranchised they don't come from the sort of background that that has they don't have support they don't have people that are going to fight for them they're going to stand up for them they they aren't privileged or affluent in any sort of way and so their their only hope is that they're going to be able to do that and so i think that's a really good point you know, the legal system and social services and social care. And if they don't listen, how are the media going to be expected to pick it up? Because it comes down to them being treated as second-class victims, I think. And they were treated as second-class. I wouldn't even say second-class, I'd say eighth-class, because some of the language used about these girls was disgusting. I think the term white slags was used as... Yes, that was used in Telford quite a lot. And the Crowther report, which was the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Telford, it was revealed that police and local authorities referred to the girls as pachyshagas, as white slags, as child prostitutes. That was a big one, the idea that a child can prostitute themselves. And these are young girls, girls as young as 10 or 11. in the case of Telford, being told that this is your fault, you brought this on yourself, you consented. It's because of your actions and your lifestyle that you're in the position you are today. Again, I remember being told at one point that my actions had led me to where I was, and this was when I was 16 or 17. And it reinforces this idea, this internalized shame that a lot of victims and survivors have, that somehow they brought it on themselves when realistically and i'll say this if i've said it once i've said it a thousand times children cannot consent to sex children cannot be asking for it children cannot be packy shaggers or white or white slags or child prostitutes children cannot consent and those adults that are preying on vulnerable little girls are criminals they're rapists and they're predators they are they are the ones in the wrong here not the little girls who were abused and you're saying that and it makes complete sense. And of course, it's just a statement of fact. But the reality is that's not how these girls were perceived. And it was a failing right the way through, like you said, the court system. Do you think the police are misogynistic, the police forces? From your own experience, from seeing the way they've interacted with other victims? I'd say that it goes far deeper than misogyny because misogyny is an inherent hatred towards women. But this isn't just... misogynistic, it's classist, it's, I would go so far as to say it's racist to suggest that these young white working class girls are white slags for being victimized and being abused. It's so much more than just a hatred of women and girls. It's a hatred of everything that these little, these young children were. It's attacking every part of their identity and suggesting that they are somehow responsible. for the abuse they suffered due to their immutable characteristics. So I say, you know, and there's a wider debate about the failings of the Crown Prosecution Service to bring sexual assault and sexual misconduct cases to trial. I believe it's 98.6% of rape cases never make it to court in the UK. That's just 1.4% of victims that are able to have their... their day in court, have their case even heard. So how many thousands upon thousands of victims are falling at the first hurdle, the second hurdle, or so on and so forth. Yes, there is absolutely a misogyny problem in the police, I would say. The fact that violence against women and girls still isn't being taken seriously in 2023 is beyond imagination. But when it comes to child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation, this particular type of crime goes far deeper than plain misogyny. And there's also, let's not ignore cowardice as well. Because the fact that a large proportion of the men committing these crimes came from a Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslim background, suddenly that meant that a lot of police and especially a lot of political commentators and a lot of politicians started to get cold feet when dealing with this. Absolutely. And this has been highlighted in the independent reports in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, Telford, that... Those in positions of power, and I quote the Telford report here, fail to do their most basic duty in investigating reports of alleged child sexual exploitation. And it was also said in the Crowther report, in the Telford report, that it was due to nervousness about race, that in many cases the police and local authorities refused to take these cases up. I'm a firm believer in the fact that Those in position of authority were blinded by fear when it comes to grooming, child sexual exploitation, child sexual abuse in general. They were worried about being called racist. They were worried about being called right wing or bigots or radicals. They were worried about the consequences on their own careers if they spoke up. And that's why there were so few whistleblowers and the few that did speak out. were absolutely slammed. They had their careers ruined. Take Maggie Oliver, who is an absolutely brilliant woman, brave and awe-inspiring. I worked very closely with her on a few different things. And she was obviously the only police official to resign over the failings in Greater Manchester. She was the whistleblower in that case. And she, for years, had those in positions of authority trying to destroy her reputation and her credibility, trying to suggest that she was a crackpot or a fool or that she was making this up or somehow sensationalizing the scale of the abuse. We now know that she was absolutely accurate in everything that she was saying. There were sexual health clinic workers, social workers, teachers who raised concerns and were discouraged from making reports. due to an inherent belief that, oh, this couldn't be going on in towns and cities like ours. This just isn't true. The girls are lying. They're making it up. They're twisting the truth. It's really astonishing how little accountability we've seen for the failings across the UK. You know, how many police officers have lost their jobs? How many council officials have faced any real... consequences. We saw Dominic Beck recently was selected as a Labour candidate. He's now stood down of his own accord. I'm assuming he jumped before he was pushed, although I can't say... Can you just go into that? Because there's a lot of people from overseas, Samantha, who wouldn't know who this councillor is. Just explain who he is and why he was pushed, well, he jumped before he was pushed. So Dominic Beck was a cabinet member in Rotherham during the time of the child sexual exploitation scandal. He and the rest of the cabinet were... were forced to resign in shame over their mishandling of the of the of the cry of the crisis and this was in 2015 that his resignation occurred i believe and was it seven years later he was selected as a labor parliamentary candidate for rother valley the the slap in the face that is to to victims and survivors to suggest that a man who had to resign literally in disgrace over his his mishandling and his cabinet's mishandling of the child sexual exploitation scandal in the area was then allowed to potentially run to represent these same survivors in parliament. He didn't represent them then, so how on earth would he be fit for public office now? He eventually stood down after GB News exposed this absolute injustice. And like I said, the Labour Party didn't push him out. officially, but he resigned of his own accord, although I believe that there's no way he wasn't facing internal pressure. We've seen in Telford, again, the Labour leader of Telford and Recon Council, who is still the current Labour leader of the council, is running now to be the next MP for Telford, Labour MP for Telford, Councillor Sean Davis. He's also the Labour Government Association lead, and so he sits in the shadow cabinet unofficially. He wrote a letter in 2018 to the then Home Secretary calling for a potential inquiry into... CSE in Telfer to be shut down. He said there was no need for an inquiry and that the scale of the abuse wasn't being accurately reported. He said that he believed that a generalized inquiry into child sexual abuse, not child sexual exploitation, a national inquiry that had been in the works since the mid-2010s would be adequate in addressing the... transsexual exploitation scandal in Telford. That was along with nine other very important men that included the chief superintendent of West Mercia Police at the time, the cabinet member for Children and Young People, Councillor Paul Watling. He also signed his name on that letter. He's now, like I said, running to be Labour MP for Telford. And he hasn't faced any negative repercussions for that, even as recently as... As in 2022, he released a statement saying, he stated in a council meeting that he was three years old at the time that CSE was happening in Telford, that he continues to shirk responsibility for his council's failings to address child sexual exploitation with, you know, shoddy apologies and vague platitudes. It seems that those that were the architects of the failings and. in dealing with child sex exploitation are still allowed to continue their careers unscathed, despite the thousands of lives that they impacted negatively, and the thousands of girls that they ignored for years. 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Because punishing people for things that they've done is always going to, like, we all think it should happen, but it's always difficult to do because, you know, it just is. But I suppose from your perspective, would I be right in thinking that your primary concern now is making sure nothing like this ever happens to anyone again, right? And so I suppose the question for you is, when we first talked to Ella Hill, which was I think 2018 or 2019 or whatever, It was 2020. It was during the pandemic. It was just, I think... I think it was before, mate. I think, let's say, let's call it 2019. I mean, I'm terrible with dates. You're probably right. But let's say it was. I think since then, in the last four years, this conversation, thankfully, is being increasingly had in public and people are actually talking about it. As you said, there have been reports into it. Are you confident that this is now something that wouldn't be repeated? Or is it still ongoing? Is it still not being properly dealt with? What is your take? What is your sense of where we are now with this issue? Child sexual exploitation is still happening in towns and cities across the UK. This isn't a crime of the past. And this is another thing that those in positions of authority like to say, that, you know, mistakes were made and lessons were learned, but this isn't happening anymore. Well, as recently as 2020, I believe in Telford alone, sorry, in Telford, America, sorry, in... In England and Wales alone, there was hundreds, over 700 reports of alleged child sexual exploitation. Of this kind, like grooming gangs? Yes, grooming gangs. How is this happening? How is this happening? I don't get it. Like, we've had all these reports. There have been brave people like you that have come forward. The police and the councils and the social services and the politicians, some of them finally got the balls to start talking about this. How is it possible that... 700 people can still be being abused in this way in once in one town I think it's, progress is happening, don't get me wrong. The conversation is a lot more open than it was, say, 10, 15 years ago. But that doesn't mean that adequate change has been made. In Telford, I'll use the Telford example again. There was a specialist team in Telford that was set up to deal with child sexual exploitation cases and to investigate this in West Mercia Police. But it was... discovered that as recently as 2020 2021 that team had been scaled back to be virtually non-existent the i think that those those in power are saying all the right things they're they're showing a willingness quote-unquote to change and to learn from the mistakes of the past but whether that's actually being implemented yet is another question entirely and i also think that that while the The scale of abuse has now been exposed and the level of the failings is being brought to national attention. There's still a long way to go in dealing with this type of crime. There's still a lot of fear. There's still a lot of ignorance and arrogance around this issue. And so long as those in power continue to try and minimize. the failings and and shirk responsibility then little girls will continue to be abused so before we go any further we've used the term child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation could you just clarify the difference between those two terms yes so child sexual exploitation is uh in this in this context is referring to group-based grooming it's it's where A group of offenders, of perpetrators, will target a young victim, usually girls. They will groom them, whether it's, there are different tactics. So there's the boyfriend tactic, there's wooing them with affection, with rides, with gifts, with whatever means necessary to build a sense of trust with the victim. They then will exploit them. So that's in the case of Telford, many of these girls were being abused by taxi drivers, by takeaway owners, and they were being brought to sex parties or passed around between men, often prostituted for money. But it's group-based sexual exploitation and grooming. Child sexual abuse refers to the broad umbrella of... of sexual abuse of children. So that can include abuse within the family. It does include child sexual exploitation. So child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse, but it falls under the umbrella. And child sexual abuse is the broad definition. Grooming can also fall in either category. Grooming can be online, it can be in person, it can be... Via social media, whatever means, grooming takes place. And child sexual exploitation, again, grooming forms a part of that. And I've always clarified, so I was a victim of child sexual abuse and grooming in Telford. I was abused and groomed for nearly a decade by successive men. I myself wasn't a victim of... the particular type of child sexual exploitation that many fellow survivors were. But my experience of the failings of the police and local authorities and those in positions of power to address exploitation and grooming and to bring justice, in my case, was identical to many of my fellow survivors. And so I suppose that's why. And my experience of the failings in Telford to give little girls justice and protect little girls from abuse was what inspired me to come forward, I suppose. Yeah. And Samantha, one of the things I find so incredible about everything you've been able to do with your life is you've overcome these awful experiences. And it's something we always think about. It's like everyone experiences some form of... you know, adversity and trauma and whatever, in your case, obviously, at a much worse and extensive level. And yet here you are, you're 20 years old, you've run an MPs campaign at the age of 17. You're on TV, you're writing columns. How have you been able to overcome all this? How have you been able to deal with the challenges that you faced? Don't get me wrong, I wasn't. I wasn't like I am now when I was 16, 17 years old. I wasn't like you are now when you were 16, 17, and I didn't go through child sexual abuse. You see, I had a lot of anger. I had a lot of fear, a lot of resentment, a lot of shame. And when I was younger, when I first came forward about the abuse that I suffered, I was a scared little girl who was... terrified of speaking out because I felt like I had somehow brought on myself, like I was responsible for the abuse. And much of this rhetoric was instilled in me by those in positions of authority. It took me a long time to overcome a lot of that anger and that guilt and that shame. And I still struggle with those feelings on a daily basis. But the way that I suppose I was able to come out the other side. and now speak about my story as I do, is I, and this sounds very strange, I compartmentalize it in the way of what I experienced was awful. It will stay with me for the rest of my life. But if by speaking out about it and by using my pain and my trauma and airing it out and exposing these injustices. If I can use my experience to enforce change and to help even just one little girl see that you can get through it and that you can survive, you can become stronger, you can be successful, then it will make it all worth it. Everything that I have done since speaking out about my experiences is in spite of what was done to me. I think that the... the best kind of revenge is success. And by not allowing my experience to define me, by not allowing, and I hate the term victim. I don't like to think of myself as a victim, even though I was victimized. I think that by refusing to let myself become all consumed and become prey to what was done to me. I can, I can, I can defy all of those expectations for me. I can, it's kind of like giving the middle finger and saying, you tried everything you could to break me. And I still rose up again. It's very impressive. Did you ever, did you ever get any justice for what happened to you? Was anyone ever convicted? No. No. No. And were you offered any kind of therapy or anything of that kind? Yes. It's a, it's a very. Very complicated system, I would say, the justice system in the UK and England and Wales specifically. So when I first went to the police about what I experienced, I was assigned an ISVA, which is an independent sexual violence advisor. And I was referred for sexual abuse therapy through an independent charity that worked with the police. I was also, because I was 16, I was shipped to a child psychologist and a child psychiatrist to see if there was anything underlying. in my own psychological makeup, I suppose, that would... And it was phrased to me so that they knew how to support me best. But I came to realise that it was partly an interrogation and a means of finding out if there was anything underlying mentally that would make it more difficult for me to be believed in court. And we've seen this in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, of victims and survivors who... had underlying mental health difficulties or who had behavioral difficulties or whatever it was, vulnerabilities, that they were told that they wouldn't be a suitable witness in court and that it wasn't a good idea to proceed with the case because they don't know how they would play in front of a jury. So I had all of these different services around me. Am I right in thinking, it doesn't sound like they were massively helpful at this point. So my independent sexual violence advisor, my ISVA, I will say was absolutely brilliant. She was genuinely felt as though she was on my side. But another and this is something about the this is something internal about the justice system that people might not know when it comes to sexual abuse therapy. One of the big things when you're when you have a case that's ongoing is any therapy that you receive, you're not actually allowed to talk about. what happened to you in specific detail. So you can't talk about the abuse, you can't talk about any particulars, you can't name any names, you can't really, you can't address the actual abuse itself. At all, because if you do, and it did come to court, then your private notes, your therapy sessions could be called upon as evidence in court. And so basically your medical privacy would be compromised if you discussed the particulars of your case during therapy while the case was ongoing. And as many survivors will know. It's a very long process to get to court. I mean, my case was dropped, no further action, because the CPS believes that there wasn't a realistic prospect of conviction due to it being a historic case. The process took nearly two years for me to not even reach court. So that was two years where I was receiving some sort of support, but I wasn't actually able to address any of the trauma and the abuse that I experienced. It was sort of... The way that it was described was keeping you ticking along until you can actually access the full package of therapy. So there were two types of therapy. There was the pre-trial therapy and then there was the post-police involvement therapy, which was the full monty where you could discuss everything and really get the help that many victims and survivors need, as I needed. So for two years, I was in this sort of purgatory. where I was receiving support to essentially stop myself from spiraling into a depressive episode or having a full-on mental breakdown during this very tumultuous period of police investigations and evidence gathering and, you know, going back and forth with the CPS and the police sergeant that was in charge of my case, but I wasn't able to... to really address any of the deep-rooted issues. And so that's something that many people don't know. You know, while this very long, laborious court proceeding is taking place, victims and survivors aren't actually able to get the support they need in the way they need it in many cases. Sam, listening to your story, the one thing that, I mean, there are many things that I find very upsetting. Someone who used to teach and used to teach vulnerable kids, because they used to teach in very, very deprived areas. I know for a fact that gangs, that these types of individuals, they target the vulnerable. They target the girls or the boys who don't come from stable family backgrounds, the ones who struggle at school, the ones who are, for whatever reason, vulnerable or labelled as difficult. And the fact that these victims won't get their day in court because they won't, in inverted commas, play well in front of a jury, I find... utterly disgusting absolutely i i and this is this is what i this is the point that i was getting to earlier where victims and survivors have every possible immutable characteristic exploited and and turned against them when they try and seek justice for the abuse they suffered many as you said many victims of this particular type of crime and it isn't just sexual exploitation it's criminal exploitation of children as well come from disadvantaged backgrounds, whether they, you know, in the case of child sexual exploitation, many of the victims in Telford, not all of them, because any child can be abused, any child can be exploited, anyone can fall victim to this sort of, this sort of crime. And I don't want to denigrate the experiences of any survivors, but many survivors were already known to social services, they were already in care, they had difficult family backgrounds, their parents were, you know, alcoholics or addicted to drugs or absent or whatever it is. Many of the survivors and victims in cases like in towns and cities like Telford were from a disadvantaged or vulnerable background. And so it begs the question with all of these services that are supposed to be around supporting children, supporting these kinds of children, how did everyone seem to fail to see the signs or fail to take action to protect them? In the case of social services, there was, as I said in Telford, for example, a massive failure to not notice the signs, but to act on them. Because it was, you know, there were children that were going to sexual health clinics for the morning after pill every single week. There were children as young as 13 or 14 that were having abortions who told the work, their social workers, oh, I've got a boyfriend who's 27 or whatever. Oh, this is happening. This is happening to me. This is what I was doing. This is where I was. And yet no further action was taken. I think that it really speaks to, and the point that I was making earlier as well, about the justice system being more than misogynistic. It isn't just that many of these victims were little girls. It's that they were from backgrounds that were less than ideal. They didn't fit the cookie cutter profile of the perfect victim. They weren't going to be able to. And this is something that I always get. I get a lot of people on Twitter that especially that say it's always Twitter, isn't it? The armchair experts themselves that say, oh, you don't sound like someone that would have been a victim of. grooming or sexual abuse. Oh, you don't look like someone that would have, that would have been a victim. And it just creates this paradox where any, any child who isn't the perfect victim, who doesn't speak well, come from an affluent family, play well in front of a jury, who doesn't tick the boxes of what the Crown Prosecution Service is looking for in someone that'll play well in court. It suggests that they are somehow less deserving of justice. and less deserving of support. And if, as in my case, you do have a posh accent, I've been told, or you went to a good school, you don't fit the typical victim profile on the other side of things, people somehow believe that, oh, you couldn't possibly have experienced this. This isn't, you know, are you sure that this happened? It's damned if you do, damned if you don't, damned if you're disadvantaged and damned if you're not. But in the case of child sexual exploitation in particular. You're right that the majority of these girls were white, working class, disadvantaged, from vulnerable backgrounds and predators. Those that took advantage of them preyed on their vulnerability and were able to exploit them, groom them, abuse them, rape them because there was no one around them that was willing to protect them. Do you have a website or do you plan to have a website? Because if you... do, then EasyDNS is a company for you. EasyDNS is the perfect domain name registrar provider and web host for you. They have a track record of standing up for their clients, whether it be cancel culture, de-platform attacks, or overzealous government agencies. He knows about that. So will you in a second. EasyDNS have rock solid network infrastructure and fantastic customer support. They're in your corner no matter what the world throws at you. Unless it's your ex-girlfriend, in which case you're on your own. You know about that. Move your domains and websites over to EasyDNS right now. All you've got to do is go to easydns.com forward slash triggered. That's easydns.com forward slash triggered. Use our promo code, which is also triggered, and get 50% off the initial purchase. Sign up for their newsletter, Access of Easy, which tells you everything you need to know about technology. privacy and censorship. And Samantha, coming back to, you mentioned that after the case and investigation and the case doesn't go to court, you get this full Monty therapy. Was that useful? Did that help you in your recovery from everything? I think it was a mixture. I'll be 100% honest and say that. So I, by the time my case was... dropped i had just aged out of the system so i was no longer able to access so my social worker closed me closed my case i was shoved off and told you're an adult now go away leave us alone um just simply like that pretty much there's there's no there's no there was no continuation of support for me um from child services and during the obviously during the pandemic this was exacerbated in the fact that you know you weren't able to really see see your workers face to face and so on i received a certain amount of support and and therapeutic intervention a little bit of the full monty but i i'll be fully honest and say that at the time that i was receiving this this therapy i wasn't ready to engage i wasn't at the point where i was ready and after i think part of it was was because i had spent two years in this limbo of of living through this experience every day but not being able to talk about not about it not being able to address it and so by the time that I was able to to access this full service I suppose of therapy I was scared I was angry I was angry that my case has been dropped I was afraid I still felt this massive shame and an inability to process it And I, yeah, I wasn't ready to go through it. I'm now in a far better place. Well, this is what I'm trying to get at, Samantha. What I'm trying to get out of you is how come you're so well put together? It's like you've obviously moved on and you've moved past it and you're now living your life and you're very accomplished and very successful and you've got a bright future and you're at university studying law and everything's brilliant, right? And the thing that's, well, not everything, nothing's ever brilliant. I was just going to say, I know it's not very... it's not very trendy to say but medication medication really helped me i'm on and this is getting a little bit vulnerable i suppose but i i'm on antidepressants i'm on anti-anxiety medication i'm on sleeping tablets i take sleeping tablets most nights to to keep myself going i have brilliant wonderful support systems now that i didn't have when i was younger you know my and i'll always say i'm Although everything that happened to me was awful and horrible, I was very, very lucky to go to a wonderful school. I went to a little grammar school in the middle of the Shropshire countryside that took over two hours to get to in the morning. So don't get me wrong, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. But when I was homeless, when I was sofa surfing, my head of year, who I will always... regard as someone that saved my life and someone I'm she's my she's my phone background actually she's on my lock screen a photo of me and her um she did my laundry for me she let me keep my bags keep my clothes in her office when I when I didn't when I didn't you know I wasn't able to carry them around with me every night she made sure that I could shower at school and I didn't have access to a shower she ensured that I had at least one hot meal a day every day bought me toiletries and a towel and things like that now at the stage that I'm at In my life at the moment, my MP, my local MP, the MP for Telford, Lucy Allen, she helped me like absolutely no one else. And you always hear that age old stereotype of Tories don't care about anyone but themselves. And I would say that she, in my opinion, defies that stereotype. She took a chance on a 17 year old with no experience and a very difficult background. gave me a shot during the 2019 campaign. She took me under her wing. I ended up working for her for nearly two years before I went to university. She is one of my biggest supporters and an absolutely amazing mentor that I'm privileged to have. There are other amazing people that I have in my life who I can go to for advice, for support, for a shoulder to cry on or someone to lean on when I'm having a tough day because not every day is like this. I spend There are days that I, and again, getting a bit vulnerable, but there are days that I spend just curled up in bed watching Netflix and not able to do anything because it's, it's, and this is something about the process that isn't off, that isn't always talked about. You know, you see polished products on TV with hair done and, and. makeup on and a nice jumper i'm very sorry we're wearing more makeup than her what are you talking about once you get into your 40s yeah you go yeah this is the best it's gonna be yeah this is it's a journey i would say and i'm not i'm by no means perfect i'm by no means healed but yeah i'd say that's how i get through it on a day-to-day basis i've got amazing support systems now that i that i'm very grateful to have and i didn't have when i was younger i very well medicated. And I just take every day as it comes. And how have your experiences shaped how you think about, you know, you mentioned working for a conservative MP. How have your experiences shaped how you think about the world? Because you mentioned not wanting to be a victim. And of all the people in the world who could be a victim if they wanted to, and who could cash in on it and capitalize on it, someone in your position, is like perfectly placed to do that. And it's the trendy thing nowadays to be a victim. And you get people who, you know, had two parents, went to a nice school, went to a good university, and because of the color of their skin or because they're a woman or because of this, they're on TV talking about how oppressed they are. And here you are saying, I don't want to be a victim. It's the monopoly of victimhood, isn't it? I think as cliche as it sounds, I've learned to... realize what the big things are what the big issues are and i i've i guess that's part of that's partly because of what i experienced but i've come to realize that bad hair day is in the end of the world and you know the this idea that everyone has to be a victim that that your your horrible experiences or your your inherent your inherent immutable characteristics somehow make you you more or less deserving of of special treatment or support or the victimhood badge. I just don't buy into any of it. And that's part of the reason why I'm a conservative. I always get asked, why are you a conservative? Surely you'd be a Labour supporter. Surely you'd be left wing if you have gone through all of this. You know, you were a victim of the system. How are you not left wing? How do you not want to change it? And I always respond in that I do want to change it, but I don't think that you can enforce change and impact change by perpetuating that victimhood. I think that there's something deeply anti-aspirational about this whole identity politics, critical race theory, identitarian victimhood, victimhood, I don't know, story, culture, sorry. No, no, don't quote us. Yeah, I just think that there's something... so deeply anti-aspirational about it the idea that if you have gone through a terrible time or you were born with with a different color skin that you are always going to be behind and that nothing is ever going to go your way that you need to have special treatment you need to have the the white man step aside for you to be successful it suggests that that people aren't capable of succeeding off their own merit and i think that with the right support and don't get me wrong especially for for For those that have experienced child sexual exploitation or grooming or child sexual abuse, it is very, very hard. It isn't easy to pick yourself up and to get out of that. But with the right sort of support, anyone is capable of achieving. And I think that the conservative messaging in Mosho is far more akin to aspiration and hand-ups, not hand-outs. than the left-wing rhetoric. I think that there's just, there's nothing that I see that is, that is fruitful or progressive or positive about telling people that you're a victim. You should feel angry at the world. You should hate everyone around you for, for making life so tough for you. No, it should be, the messaging should be. Yes, life can be bad. Life can be really, really, really sucky. But you are capable of achieving. You're capable of doing something better. You're capable of lifting yourself out of that situation. And these are the things that we want to do to support you with that. This is a question that I didn't think I was going to ask, but you're such a remarkable person that I'm going to ask it. What do you think about the way that we talk about exploitation, rape? abuse in the media now and particularly with things like me too etc etc do you think we discuss it in an honest way do you disagree with the way that we discuss it i think that the one thing i would say is while again the conversation is more open than it used to be people still aren't being candid about the nature of this type of crime what are we not saying i mean as as in my own experience i've been asked going on shows before can you not mention the word rape or can you not mention the the word pakistan that is me down to a t is that something i'll put my foot right it's essentially a guy a gagging clause that that you know you're allowed to discuss this when you're doing like tv or radio that type of thing well they're asking you not to say the word rape or not to mention the race because somehow it is too too much for the modernists it's unpalatable to talk about it in such in such a frank detail And I think that that's what I would say needs to be improved upon. Because realistically, if the police were allowed to say that white working class girls, victims of child sexual exploitation were white slags and packy shaggers, why can I not repeat it on national TV and expose exactly what it is that they said? Why is there this double standard in the media and in television and radio that... Somehow the girls that were abused, raped, exploited, groomed by predominantly Pakistani Muslim men were forced to go through this. But we as a society can't bear repeating it in open and honest detail. I think that the conversation is far from frank and open and honest. And that there needs to be a lot more done to unwrap the cotton wool around the mainstream media. And say that... As long as we have these sensitivities and these no-go areas around the topic of rape and exploitation, then little girls are going to continue to be abused because it just furthers this culture of ignorance and victim blaming and silence and shame. Silence only serves to protect the perpetrators of this crime. And cultural sensitivity, political correctness only serves to protect the predators. Samantha, do you think one of the reasons why, with the Me Too movement, Harvey Weinstein was such a huge figure is that, and push back if you disagree on this, is because... He very neatly encapsulated what we want a villain to be. You know, he's a rich white guy who's powerful, you know, and people felt that they couldn't, you know, they couldn't challenge him. And he obviously acted. It was just him. And then everybody else kind of obeyed him. And also his victims are very high status women usually, right? Yeah. So that helps. Yeah. I did a piece for the Mail on this issue, exactly, the Harvey Weinstein. And, and, um. The Harvey Weinstein issue and the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell case. The reason why these celebrity cases, same with Prince Andrew, were such a national scandal, why the papers were doing double page spreads on Ghislaine Maxwell's court outfit and covering it wall to wall for weeks and weeks was because it appeals to our societal our societal intrigue and interest with the with the idea of celebrity these were this was a lifestyle that the ordinary person couldn't even dream of you know private jets and and epstein island and celebrities and millions of dollars being traded for sexual for sexual favors it was very much glamorized and mystified and played into the into the myth of hollywood i would say and and it was far more glamorous to talk about billionaires on on private boats and and islands than you know a working class white girl from telford being being raped around the back of of a of a kebab shop it's in my opinion it was so it was so highly covered because the victims and the perpetrators and to some extent the victims were celebrities they were part of this jet-setting lifestyle that many of us can only dream of whereas Once again, it isn't glamorous or cool or fashionable to talk about little girls in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, Banbury, Telford, etc. being groomed and exploited by predominantly Pakistani men. And do you think that was one element, or there's lots of elements of the whole Me Too movement, that ignored these types of crimes? I think that the Me Too movement is a difficult one because... It was very much, it existed in a time and place in Hollywood, specifically, I would say. It was the idea that it was demystifying the Hollywood myth and showing that sexual abuse and exploitation and harassment was very much alive and well in Hollywood. And lifting the lid on this culture of misogyny and grooming and victim blaming within Hollywood. I think that child sexual exploitation and abuse is completely removed from that. It's an entirely different kettle of fish because, and this isn't me saying that it shouldn't be, that people shouldn't raise the sort of awareness of child sexual exploitation they did in the Me Too movement. But I think that, again, it all comes down to the class of the victims and the perpetrators. The Me Too movement was a... specifically focused on this celebrity, the celebrity lifestyle. And it did snowball to some extent. And there were ordinary women, quote unquote, that were speaking out about the abuse they experienced. But it was very much to do with Hollywood and the celebrity world and the sexual harassment that was going on there. Whereas what is happening in towns like Telford, Rotherham, Rochdale, etc. is a lot closer to home. a grooming crisis in our own backyards. And that is very, very different from the Me Too movement. Samantha, there's one other question that I wanted to ask you, because of all the people that we've interviewed, pretty much other than Ella, you have more reason than anyone, I think, to hate men. And we do live in a society where increasingly that narrative, from certain quarters, at least, seems to me like it is being advanced and it is being pushed. you know toxic masculinity this and men are that and the patriarchy and this and that and like i say i mean if you were if you were to sit in that chair and go you know what i think men are trash i'd be like you know what i generally don't agree but i think you've got a reason to you've got a pass you you've got you can say that what do you make of the way we have the conversations around these issues men and women men's roles women's roles in society etc i think There's a very big difference between hating men and wanting to change the culture around masculinity and the way that women are treated in society. I don't hate men. I think that many men are perfectly decent and upstanding human beings. I'm definitely not putting on my tinfoil hat and raising my pitchfork and my stake and calling for all of them to be burned in the town square. But I think that... The way that the conversation needs to be had, and this is the problem with some radical feminist movements. I would call myself a feminist, but I wouldn't say that I'm a new wave or a current feminist in the way that it seems to have spiraled now, where people say the future is female and F all men and that we should eat all men, that all men are awful, horrible, nasty criminals. and that they should all be expelled from society. The conversation really needs to be around how can we deconstruct these ideas of toxic masculinity and misogyny in society, because misogyny is still a very, very big problem, especially in the major institutions of this country and across the world. The police, the government, the way that women are treated in... in all areas of society still needs to be improved. And it would be remiss to, obviously women can be perpetrators of sexual abuse as well. That does happen. But in the majority of cases, men are the perpetrators and women are the victims or little girls or little boys are the victims, women and children. So it's about having an honest and open conversation, but also not villainizing everybody. There's... I think that we seem to have lost nuance in modern political debate. There's no ability for people to say that this, and it's the same with Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, that you aren't able to say that not all Pakistani people are bad, not all Muslims are bad, but there is a significant problem within this community that is unique, for the most part, to this community. This is going on and we need to figure out how we can address it. It's the same with men. People say, oh, it's not all men that do this. You know, women can be rapists too, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes, that's true. I'm not denying that. I don't think that anyone is denying that it's not all men that are perpetrators of sexual abuse, but there are too many women that are victims. There was a, I think it was an NSPC study that came out that found that, I think it was like 96% of... of girls had experienced some sort of sexual harassment before the age of 16. That's a staggering figure. So yes, it isn't all men, but it's too many women, in my opinion. So we can have this conversation and say that there is a problem with a lot of men abusing women and children, but that doesn't mean that it's all men that are bad and evil and horrible. And this is where maybe I would add even a little bit more news. The fact that there are a lot of female victims does not mean that there are a lot of male perpetrators necessarily, right? It could be that a small minority of people commit a lot of those offenses or do a lot of those things over time. And I think that's maybe where part of the nuance is getting lost because I actually happen to think, and this is just my opinion, that one of the solutions to some of these problems is for men who are not like that to have more of a role in protecting women. Right? And I think... That's where my concern is sometimes when we start to tar people with the same brush. You're actually pushing good men away from being involved and being active in looking after people. Because that is, you know, it's not a fashionable thing to say, but that is part of men's jobs is to protect others. You know, protect children, protect women, protect partners, etc. And I think we're losing that a little bit as well. I think that you're absolutely right in the fact that men... can do a lot more to help protect women and children. I think that it's the discussion that's had the topic of what can we be doing to raise our sons and our young men to be better than previous generations that came before them. It starts at a very young age, this toxic ideology and this idea that women are somehow beneath men or that they are... only to be used for sexual gratification or pleasure that somehow women are inferior, needs to be tackled and addressed. In the same way, when it comes to racism, people aren't born racist, people aren't born sexual predators. This behavior is learned. There was a case in Telford, and it's an ongoing case, so I won't comment on it too much, but there was an ongoing case in Telford of a boy, a 13-year-old boy, who has been arrested for, I believe it's nine counts of rape. and several other sexual assaults of women and girls aged 16 to 34. This is a 13-year-old boy that has been accused of these crimes. He wasn't born that way. This behavior is learned, whether he learned it from his father or his schoolmates or his uncle or his brothers or whoever it is. Someone taught this little boy that it was okay to sexually assault women. And so... tackling that at a very young age and dispelling this sort of ideology and teaching young boys how to be good men how to be good upstanding law-abiding respectful citizens is the key i think to to to making a difference but let's let's not get get it twisted people will always there will always be bad people in the world people will always rape abuse exploit people will always be be horrible but i think that So long as we continue to put up these barriers to open an honest conversation, and one of those barriers is this lack of nuance and the rhetoric that all men are bad and that all men should be exiled and whatever. Well, like I say, you'd be forgiven for saying that if you wanted to. But I guess my point would be with that 13-year-old boy, you actually think you put your finger on it, which is... If that boy had a father in the home who taught him how to treat women properly, that never would have happened. And I think that's part of the answer as well, is for men to be better. I think that's really important. Samantha, anyway, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you, although obviously it's a difficult conversation, but an important one. And I'm really glad we've been able to have you on to keep reminding people that these things aren't over. It's still going on. There's still work to do. We thank you for sharing your story with us and for coming on. You've got a bright future ahead of you. So we wish you all the best. Before we let you go, we've got our final question and some questions from our supporters that they've already submitted. Our final question, as always, is what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be? I'm going to go a little bit left field here. And we've obviously talked a lot about child sex exploitation, grooming, and... I would say that would be the obvious answer for what we need to be talking about more in society. So I'm going to keep it light here and say opera. Opera is the thing that we need to be talking about more. And I don't think my Twitter followers, I tweeted about it earlier, and I don't think that it was a bit too niche for them. But I believe that opera is the best genre of music out there. I believe that it should be mainstream, that everyone should be taking their children to see La Traviata or Carmen or Cosi Fantuti. I think that opera needs to be spoken about and revered more than it is in society. Spoken like a real conservative. What can I say? You know, my grandfather, here's a story for you. My grandfather was a working class joiner brought up in Wigan in the north of England. And he volunteered to join the army during the Second World War. And he went and part of where he fought was in Italy. And he fell in love with opera. He fell in love with opera, he fell in love with Italy. So he came back and he was working in the railways with all these big other working class men. And they all thought he was a bit odd because he would be there working whilst listening to La Traviata. I love that. I think that opera is, and this is turning into a conversation about accessibility in opera, but... Opera is far more accessible than it used to be and there's a joy to be found in appreciating a good musical score. Forget what, forget Lizzo and Sam Smith and Harry Styles and all of this modern filth that's getting put out. You are so conservative, Samantha. It's modern filth! I think, I always like to think of myself as an 85 year old woman trapped in... You've got her opinions. Yeah, trapped in a young person's body. You know, all I... It's to sit at home with a glass of wine. I do this sometimes. Sit at home with a glass of wine and a camembert and listen to Kosti Fantuti or La Boheme on the radio. It's something that I think we need to get. Reject modernity and embrace tradition. That's my message for all of your lovely followers. We're going to call this episode Ban This Modern Filthy. Samantha, where can people find you online if they want to follow your work and follow along with your career? I'm on Twitter at Samantha Taghoy. That's T-A-G-H-O-Y, spelled as it sounds. I'm not really active on anything else. I think that Twitter is my poison of choice. But if people are interested in reading my print journalism, I'm a columnist for The Spectator and The Daily Mail. If you search Samantha Smith, Spectator or Samantha Smith. Daily Mail. You might find a 1970s peace activist first, but I'll be the second one that shows up. So yeah, that's the way that people can find me. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure to meet you. And thank you for watching and listening. We'll see you on Locals for the bonus questions. Take care and see you soon.

We've got lots to talk about. Before we do, and in fact, help us set it up by telling us your story. Who are you?

How are you? Where you are? What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us?

Yeah, of course. I am 20 years old. I'm from, I was originally born in Surrey, but I moved to Telford in the West Midlands when I was very young. I I sort of fell into this line of work when I was 17. I had always been interested in politics and current affairs, but when I was 17 in the general election 2019, I helped to run my local MP's election campaign. And from that, I continued to get involved in local politics.

When schools closed in 2020, in March 2020, I was 17. And I come from a disadvantaged background, so I'm legally estranged from my parent. I was homeless from the age of 16 legally. I was under social services, you know, sofa staff for about 16 months, if I'm remembering rightly. Moving from sleeping bags to sofas every night, sitting in McDonald's and nursing a cup of coffee until 6am to get the school bus in the morning.

But I... I've always been on Twitter and I wrote a tweet in August 2020 about the cancellation of exams and the impact it would have on disadvantaged students, the way that young people were being judged based on their postcode rather than their potential. And that was picked up by a spectator journalist who asked if I'd be interested in writing a piece for the publication. And from there, it sort of snowballed. And now...

here I am here I am today well you've got an astonishing CV for someone who's 20 years old so very impressive and kudos to you and one of the things you didn't mention is one of the the big things that I think also propelled your sort of role as a commentator was your commentary on the grooming gangs and all of that because it's something that you were personally affected by as well yes so as I said I'm I grew up in Telford in the West Midlands which is some of your your viewers I'm sure will be aware is One of the key towns, I suppose, in the national child sexual exploitation scandal, over 1,000 girls fell victim to organised grooming gangs in Telford over a course of around 30 years. I personally was groomed and abused for nearly a decade, from the ages of 5 to about 14. I didn't come forward to anyone. With the abuse I experienced until I was 16, I then went through the justice system, was sort of chewed up and spat back out, as many young girls are.

I remember, I'll never forget being told by a social worker, if you were physically abused, why were there no bruises? That's a comment that really stuck with me. And I think when for a long time I wasn't aware that there were other girls in my position, there were other girls that had been sexually abused, that had been groomed, that had... had had such a horrendous experience and so when everything began began to come out in in 2018 2019 on the grooming scandal on the the the culture of exploitation ignorance and and silence in towns like Telford it struck home for me and I first spoke about my story and my experience in 2020 That's when I went public with it, I suppose.

And I have worked my hardest to bring awareness to the issue, to amplify survivors'voices, and to just really keep the conversation in the media attention, because so many girls like me have been disenfranchised and marginalized and silenced by those in power. So without people willing to speak up, whether it's anonymously or showing their faces, I waive my right to anonymity. Perpetrators, groomers, rapists, grooming gangs, they're going to be able to continue to thrive and continue to groom, rape, abuse, exploit other little girls.

So that's why I suppose I chose to speak out. And we've had a survivor of the grooming gangs on the show, Dr. Ella Hill. I don't know if you're familiar with her, if you saw that interview, but she was anonymized. And so you're very courageous to talk about it in public the way that you do.

And I'm curious because one of the things I've discovered after... We published that interview. I contacted every journalist I could and I went, look, watch this interview. Why don't you write something about this? And they just, they were not interested.

Why do you think that is? It's the age old, the age old issue of cultural sensitivity, I would say. People find it a lot easier to ignore victims than they do to go after the perpetrators. We saw it with local councils, with social services, with the police.

the Crown Prosecution Service, with mainstream media, with the government, the list goes on. Those in positions of power and authority don't want to have this conversation because it exposes their own failings. It exposes the culture of ignorance and silence and victim blaming that was perpetrated over decades. You know, young girls have been trying to speak out. This isn't something new.

This isn't a... a new occurrence of all of a sudden victims and survivors coming out of the woodworks and wanting to share their stories. No, they went to sexual health clinics, they went to the police, they went to their teachers, their social workers, and they were ignored at every turn because they were viewed as second class victims. And those in positions of authority were scared about the implications of accusing, in the case of grooming gangs, particularly, predominantly Pakistani men.

of being rapists and of raping predominantly white working class girls it's far easier to pivot the conversation away from from victims and survivors because they are traditionally disenfranchised they don't come from the sort of background that that has they don't have support they don't have people that are going to fight for them they're going to stand up for them they they aren't privileged or affluent in any sort of way and so their their only hope is that they're going to be able to do that and so i think that's a really good point you know, the legal system and social services and social care. And if they don't listen, how are the media going to be expected to pick it up? Because it comes down to them being treated as second-class victims, I think.

And they were treated as second-class. I wouldn't even say second-class, I'd say eighth-class, because some of the language used about these girls was disgusting. I think the term white slags was used as... Yes, that was used in Telford quite a lot. And the Crowther report, which was the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Telford, it was revealed that police and local authorities referred to the girls as pachyshagas, as white slags, as child prostitutes.

That was a big one, the idea that a child can prostitute themselves. And these are young girls, girls as young as 10 or 11. in the case of Telford, being told that this is your fault, you brought this on yourself, you consented. It's because of your actions and your lifestyle that you're in the position you are today.

Again, I remember being told at one point that my actions had led me to where I was, and this was when I was 16 or 17. And it reinforces this idea, this internalized shame that a lot of victims and survivors have, that somehow they brought it on themselves when realistically and i'll say this if i've said it once i've said it a thousand times children cannot consent to sex children cannot be asking for it children cannot be packy shaggers or white or white slags or child prostitutes children cannot consent and those adults that are preying on vulnerable little girls are criminals they're rapists and they're predators they are they are the ones in the wrong here not the little girls who were abused and you're saying that and it makes complete sense. And of course, it's just a statement of fact. But the reality is that's not how these girls were perceived. And it was a failing right the way through, like you said, the court system.

Do you think the police are misogynistic, the police forces? From your own experience, from seeing the way they've interacted with other victims? I'd say that it goes far deeper than misogyny because misogyny is an inherent hatred towards women. But this isn't just... misogynistic, it's classist, it's, I would go so far as to say it's racist to suggest that these young white working class girls are white slags for being victimized and being abused.

It's so much more than just a hatred of women and girls. It's a hatred of everything that these little, these young children were. It's attacking every part of their identity and suggesting that they are somehow responsible. for the abuse they suffered due to their immutable characteristics.

So I say, you know, and there's a wider debate about the failings of the Crown Prosecution Service to bring sexual assault and sexual misconduct cases to trial. I believe it's 98.6% of rape cases never make it to court in the UK. That's just 1.4% of victims that are able to have their...

their day in court, have their case even heard. So how many thousands upon thousands of victims are falling at the first hurdle, the second hurdle, or so on and so forth. Yes, there is absolutely a misogyny problem in the police, I would say.

The fact that violence against women and girls still isn't being taken seriously in 2023 is beyond imagination. But when it comes to child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation, this particular type of crime goes far deeper than plain misogyny. And there's also, let's not ignore cowardice as well. Because the fact that a large proportion of the men committing these crimes came from a Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslim background, suddenly that meant that a lot of police and especially a lot of political commentators and a lot of politicians started to get cold feet when dealing with this. Absolutely.

And this has been highlighted in the independent reports in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, Telford, that... Those in positions of power, and I quote the Telford report here, fail to do their most basic duty in investigating reports of alleged child sexual exploitation. And it was also said in the Crowther report, in the Telford report, that it was due to nervousness about race, that in many cases the police and local authorities refused to take these cases up.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that Those in position of authority were blinded by fear when it comes to grooming, child sexual exploitation, child sexual abuse in general. They were worried about being called racist. They were worried about being called right wing or bigots or radicals.

They were worried about the consequences on their own careers if they spoke up. And that's why there were so few whistleblowers and the few that did speak out. were absolutely slammed. They had their careers ruined. Take Maggie Oliver, who is an absolutely brilliant woman, brave and awe-inspiring.

I worked very closely with her on a few different things. And she was obviously the only police official to resign over the failings in Greater Manchester. She was the whistleblower in that case. And she, for years, had those in positions of authority trying to destroy her reputation and her credibility, trying to suggest that she was a crackpot or a fool or that she was making this up or somehow sensationalizing the scale of the abuse.

We now know that she was absolutely accurate in everything that she was saying. There were sexual health clinic workers, social workers, teachers who raised concerns and were discouraged from making reports. due to an inherent belief that, oh, this couldn't be going on in towns and cities like ours.

This just isn't true. The girls are lying. They're making it up.

They're twisting the truth. It's really astonishing how little accountability we've seen for the failings across the UK. You know, how many police officers have lost their jobs?

How many council officials have faced any real... consequences. We saw Dominic Beck recently was selected as a Labour candidate.

He's now stood down of his own accord. I'm assuming he jumped before he was pushed, although I can't say... Can you just go into that? Because there's a lot of people from overseas, Samantha, who wouldn't know who this councillor is. Just explain who he is and why he was pushed, well, he jumped before he was pushed.

So Dominic Beck was a cabinet member in Rotherham during the time of the child sexual exploitation scandal. He and the rest of the cabinet were... were forced to resign in shame over their mishandling of the of the of the cry of the crisis and this was in 2015 that his resignation occurred i believe and was it seven years later he was selected as a labor parliamentary candidate for rother valley the the slap in the face that is to to victims and survivors to suggest that a man who had to resign literally in disgrace over his his mishandling and his cabinet's mishandling of the child sexual exploitation scandal in the area was then allowed to potentially run to represent these same survivors in parliament.

He didn't represent them then, so how on earth would he be fit for public office now? He eventually stood down after GB News exposed this absolute injustice. And like I said, the Labour Party didn't push him out. officially, but he resigned of his own accord, although I believe that there's no way he wasn't facing internal pressure. We've seen in Telford, again, the Labour leader of Telford and Recon Council, who is still the current Labour leader of the council, is running now to be the next MP for Telford, Labour MP for Telford, Councillor Sean Davis.

He's also the Labour Government Association lead, and so he sits in the shadow cabinet unofficially. He wrote a letter in 2018 to the then Home Secretary calling for a potential inquiry into... CSE in Telfer to be shut down.

He said there was no need for an inquiry and that the scale of the abuse wasn't being accurately reported. He said that he believed that a generalized inquiry into child sexual abuse, not child sexual exploitation, a national inquiry that had been in the works since the mid-2010s would be adequate in addressing the... transsexual exploitation scandal in Telford. That was along with nine other very important men that included the chief superintendent of West Mercia Police at the time, the cabinet member for Children and Young People, Councillor Paul Watling. He also signed his name on that letter.

He's now, like I said, running to be Labour MP for Telford. And he hasn't faced any negative repercussions for that, even as recently as... As in 2022, he released a statement saying, he stated in a council meeting that he was three years old at the time that CSE was happening in Telford, that he continues to shirk responsibility for his council's failings to address child sexual exploitation with, you know, shoddy apologies and vague platitudes.

It seems that those that were the architects of the failings and. in dealing with child sex exploitation are still allowed to continue their careers unscathed, despite the thousands of lives that they impacted negatively, and the thousands of girls that they ignored for years. Hey, Konstantin, do you like being healthy?

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Samantha, and I mean, it's a difficult conversation, isn't it? Because punishing people for things that they've done is always going to, like, we all think it should happen, but it's always difficult to do because, you know, it just is. But I suppose from your perspective, would I be right in thinking that your primary concern now is making sure nothing like this ever happens to anyone again, right? And so I suppose the question for you is, when we first talked to Ella Hill, which was I think 2018 or 2019 or whatever, It was 2020. It was during the pandemic.

It was just, I think... I think it was before, mate. I think, let's say, let's call it 2019. I mean, I'm terrible with dates.

You're probably right. But let's say it was. I think since then, in the last four years, this conversation, thankfully, is being increasingly had in public and people are actually talking about it.

As you said, there have been reports into it. Are you confident that this is now something that wouldn't be repeated? Or is it still ongoing?

Is it still not being properly dealt with? What is your take? What is your sense of where we are now with this issue? Child sexual exploitation is still happening in towns and cities across the UK.

This isn't a crime of the past. And this is another thing that those in positions of authority like to say, that, you know, mistakes were made and lessons were learned, but this isn't happening anymore. Well, as recently as 2020, I believe in Telford alone, sorry, in Telford, America, sorry, in... In England and Wales alone, there was hundreds, over 700 reports of alleged child sexual exploitation. Of this kind, like grooming gangs?

Yes, grooming gangs. How is this happening? How is this happening?

I don't get it. Like, we've had all these reports. There have been brave people like you that have come forward.

The police and the councils and the social services and the politicians, some of them finally got the balls to start talking about this. How is it possible that... 700 people can still be being abused in this way in once in one town I think it's, progress is happening, don't get me wrong.

The conversation is a lot more open than it was, say, 10, 15 years ago. But that doesn't mean that adequate change has been made. In Telford, I'll use the Telford example again. There was a specialist team in Telford that was set up to deal with child sexual exploitation cases and to investigate this in West Mercia Police. But it was...

discovered that as recently as 2020 2021 that team had been scaled back to be virtually non-existent the i think that those those in power are saying all the right things they're they're showing a willingness quote-unquote to change and to learn from the mistakes of the past but whether that's actually being implemented yet is another question entirely and i also think that that while the The scale of abuse has now been exposed and the level of the failings is being brought to national attention. There's still a long way to go in dealing with this type of crime. There's still a lot of fear.

There's still a lot of ignorance and arrogance around this issue. And so long as those in power continue to try and minimize. the failings and and shirk responsibility then little girls will continue to be abused so before we go any further we've used the term child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation could you just clarify the difference between those two terms yes so child sexual exploitation is uh in this in this context is referring to group-based grooming it's it's where A group of offenders, of perpetrators, will target a young victim, usually girls. They will groom them, whether it's, there are different tactics.

So there's the boyfriend tactic, there's wooing them with affection, with rides, with gifts, with whatever means necessary to build a sense of trust with the victim. They then will exploit them. So that's in the case of Telford, many of these girls were being abused by taxi drivers, by takeaway owners, and they were being brought to sex parties or passed around between men, often prostituted for money. But it's group-based sexual exploitation and grooming.

Child sexual abuse refers to the broad umbrella of... of sexual abuse of children. So that can include abuse within the family. It does include child sexual exploitation.

So child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse, but it falls under the umbrella. And child sexual abuse is the broad definition. Grooming can also fall in either category. Grooming can be online, it can be in person, it can be... Via social media, whatever means, grooming takes place.

And child sexual exploitation, again, grooming forms a part of that. And I've always clarified, so I was a victim of child sexual abuse and grooming in Telford. I was abused and groomed for nearly a decade by successive men. I myself wasn't a victim of...

the particular type of child sexual exploitation that many fellow survivors were. But my experience of the failings of the police and local authorities and those in positions of power to address exploitation and grooming and to bring justice, in my case, was identical to many of my fellow survivors. And so I suppose that's why. And my experience of the failings in Telford to give little girls justice and protect little girls from abuse was what inspired me to come forward, I suppose.

Yeah. And Samantha, one of the things I find so incredible about everything you've been able to do with your life is you've overcome these awful experiences. And it's something we always think about.

It's like everyone experiences some form of... you know, adversity and trauma and whatever, in your case, obviously, at a much worse and extensive level. And yet here you are, you're 20 years old, you've run an MPs campaign at the age of 17. You're on TV, you're writing columns.

How have you been able to overcome all this? How have you been able to deal with the challenges that you faced? Don't get me wrong, I wasn't. I wasn't like I am now when I was 16, 17 years old. I wasn't like you are now when you were 16, 17, and I didn't go through child sexual abuse.

You see, I had a lot of anger. I had a lot of fear, a lot of resentment, a lot of shame. And when I was younger, when I first came forward about the abuse that I suffered, I was a scared little girl who was... terrified of speaking out because I felt like I had somehow brought on myself, like I was responsible for the abuse.

And much of this rhetoric was instilled in me by those in positions of authority. It took me a long time to overcome a lot of that anger and that guilt and that shame. And I still struggle with those feelings on a daily basis.

But the way that I suppose I was able to come out the other side. and now speak about my story as I do, is I, and this sounds very strange, I compartmentalize it in the way of what I experienced was awful. It will stay with me for the rest of my life. But if by speaking out about it and by using my pain and my trauma and airing it out and exposing these injustices.

If I can use my experience to enforce change and to help even just one little girl see that you can get through it and that you can survive, you can become stronger, you can be successful, then it will make it all worth it. Everything that I have done since speaking out about my experiences is in spite of what was done to me. I think that the... the best kind of revenge is success. And by not allowing my experience to define me, by not allowing, and I hate the term victim.

I don't like to think of myself as a victim, even though I was victimized. I think that by refusing to let myself become all consumed and become prey to what was done to me. I can, I can, I can defy all of those expectations for me. I can, it's kind of like giving the middle finger and saying, you tried everything you could to break me. And I still rose up again.

It's very impressive. Did you ever, did you ever get any justice for what happened to you? Was anyone ever convicted? No. No.

No. And were you offered any kind of therapy or anything of that kind? Yes.

It's a, it's a very. Very complicated system, I would say, the justice system in the UK and England and Wales specifically. So when I first went to the police about what I experienced, I was assigned an ISVA, which is an independent sexual violence advisor.

And I was referred for sexual abuse therapy through an independent charity that worked with the police. I was also, because I was 16, I was shipped to a child psychologist and a child psychiatrist to see if there was anything underlying. in my own psychological makeup, I suppose, that would... And it was phrased to me so that they knew how to support me best.

But I came to realise that it was partly an interrogation and a means of finding out if there was anything underlying mentally that would make it more difficult for me to be believed in court. And we've seen this in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, of victims and survivors who... had underlying mental health difficulties or who had behavioral difficulties or whatever it was, vulnerabilities, that they were told that they wouldn't be a suitable witness in court and that it wasn't a good idea to proceed with the case because they don't know how they would play in front of a jury. So I had all of these different services around me.

Am I right in thinking, it doesn't sound like they were massively helpful at this point. So my independent sexual violence advisor, my ISVA, I will say was absolutely brilliant. She was genuinely felt as though she was on my side. But another and this is something about the this is something internal about the justice system that people might not know when it comes to sexual abuse therapy.

One of the big things when you're when you have a case that's ongoing is any therapy that you receive, you're not actually allowed to talk about. what happened to you in specific detail. So you can't talk about the abuse, you can't talk about any particulars, you can't name any names, you can't really, you can't address the actual abuse itself. At all, because if you do, and it did come to court, then your private notes, your therapy sessions could be called upon as evidence in court. And so basically your medical privacy would be compromised if you discussed the particulars of your case during therapy while the case was ongoing.

And as many survivors will know. It's a very long process to get to court. I mean, my case was dropped, no further action, because the CPS believes that there wasn't a realistic prospect of conviction due to it being a historic case. The process took nearly two years for me to not even reach court.

So that was two years where I was receiving some sort of support, but I wasn't actually able to address any of the trauma and the abuse that I experienced. It was sort of... The way that it was described was keeping you ticking along until you can actually access the full package of therapy. So there were two types of therapy. There was the pre-trial therapy and then there was the post-police involvement therapy, which was the full monty where you could discuss everything and really get the help that many victims and survivors need, as I needed.

So for two years, I was in this sort of purgatory. where I was receiving support to essentially stop myself from spiraling into a depressive episode or having a full-on mental breakdown during this very tumultuous period of police investigations and evidence gathering and, you know, going back and forth with the CPS and the police sergeant that was in charge of my case, but I wasn't able to... to really address any of the deep-rooted issues. And so that's something that many people don't know.

You know, while this very long, laborious court proceeding is taking place, victims and survivors aren't actually able to get the support they need in the way they need it in many cases. Sam, listening to your story, the one thing that, I mean, there are many things that I find very upsetting. Someone who used to teach and used to teach vulnerable kids, because they used to teach in very, very deprived areas. I know for a fact that gangs, that these types of individuals, they target the vulnerable.

They target the girls or the boys who don't come from stable family backgrounds, the ones who struggle at school, the ones who are, for whatever reason, vulnerable or labelled as difficult. And the fact that these victims won't get their day in court because they won't, in inverted commas, play well in front of a jury, I find... utterly disgusting absolutely i i and this is this is what i this is the point that i was getting to earlier where victims and survivors have every possible immutable characteristic exploited and and turned against them when they try and seek justice for the abuse they suffered many as you said many victims of this particular type of crime and it isn't just sexual exploitation it's criminal exploitation of children as well come from disadvantaged backgrounds, whether they, you know, in the case of child sexual exploitation, many of the victims in Telford, not all of them, because any child can be abused, any child can be exploited, anyone can fall victim to this sort of, this sort of crime. And I don't want to denigrate the experiences of any survivors, but many survivors were already known to social services, they were already in care, they had difficult family backgrounds, their parents were, you know, alcoholics or addicted to drugs or absent or whatever it is. Many of the survivors and victims in cases like in towns and cities like Telford were from a disadvantaged or vulnerable background.

And so it begs the question with all of these services that are supposed to be around supporting children, supporting these kinds of children, how did everyone seem to fail to see the signs or fail to take action to protect them? In the case of social services, there was, as I said in Telford, for example, a massive failure to not notice the signs, but to act on them. Because it was, you know, there were children that were going to sexual health clinics for the morning after pill every single week. There were children as young as 13 or 14 that were having abortions who told the work, their social workers, oh, I've got a boyfriend who's 27 or whatever.

Oh, this is happening. This is happening to me. This is what I was doing. This is where I was.

And yet no further action was taken. I think that it really speaks to, and the point that I was making earlier as well, about the justice system being more than misogynistic. It isn't just that many of these victims were little girls. It's that they were from backgrounds that were less than ideal. They didn't fit the cookie cutter profile of the perfect victim.

They weren't going to be able to. And this is something that I always get. I get a lot of people on Twitter that especially that say it's always Twitter, isn't it? The armchair experts themselves that say, oh, you don't sound like someone that would have been a victim of. grooming or sexual abuse.

Oh, you don't look like someone that would have, that would have been a victim. And it just creates this paradox where any, any child who isn't the perfect victim, who doesn't speak well, come from an affluent family, play well in front of a jury, who doesn't tick the boxes of what the Crown Prosecution Service is looking for in someone that'll play well in court. It suggests that they are somehow less deserving of justice.

and less deserving of support. And if, as in my case, you do have a posh accent, I've been told, or you went to a good school, you don't fit the typical victim profile on the other side of things, people somehow believe that, oh, you couldn't possibly have experienced this. This isn't, you know, are you sure that this happened?

It's damned if you do, damned if you don't, damned if you're disadvantaged and damned if you're not. But in the case of child sexual exploitation in particular. You're right that the majority of these girls were white, working class, disadvantaged, from vulnerable backgrounds and predators.

Those that took advantage of them preyed on their vulnerability and were able to exploit them, groom them, abuse them, rape them because there was no one around them that was willing to protect them. Do you have a website or do you plan to have a website? Because if you... do, then EasyDNS is a company for you. EasyDNS is the perfect domain name registrar provider and web host for you.

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privacy and censorship. And Samantha, coming back to, you mentioned that after the case and investigation and the case doesn't go to court, you get this full Monty therapy. Was that useful?

Did that help you in your recovery from everything? I think it was a mixture. I'll be 100% honest and say that. So I, by the time my case was... dropped i had just aged out of the system so i was no longer able to access so my social worker closed me closed my case i was shoved off and told you're an adult now go away leave us alone um just simply like that pretty much there's there's no there's no there was no continuation of support for me um from child services and during the obviously during the pandemic this was exacerbated in the fact that you know you weren't able to really see see your workers face to face and so on i received a certain amount of support and and therapeutic intervention a little bit of the full monty but i i'll be fully honest and say that at the time that i was receiving this this therapy i wasn't ready to engage i wasn't at the point where i was ready and after i think part of it was was because i had spent two years in this limbo of of living through this experience every day but not being able to talk about not about it not being able to address it and so by the time that I was able to to access this full service I suppose of therapy I was scared I was angry I was angry that my case has been dropped I was afraid I still felt this massive shame and an inability to process it And I, yeah, I wasn't ready to go through it.

I'm now in a far better place. Well, this is what I'm trying to get at, Samantha. What I'm trying to get out of you is how come you're so well put together? It's like you've obviously moved on and you've moved past it and you're now living your life and you're very accomplished and very successful and you've got a bright future and you're at university studying law and everything's brilliant, right? And the thing that's, well, not everything, nothing's ever brilliant.

I was just going to say, I know it's not very... it's not very trendy to say but medication medication really helped me i'm on and this is getting a little bit vulnerable i suppose but i i'm on antidepressants i'm on anti-anxiety medication i'm on sleeping tablets i take sleeping tablets most nights to to keep myself going i have brilliant wonderful support systems now that i didn't have when i was younger you know my and i'll always say i'm Although everything that happened to me was awful and horrible, I was very, very lucky to go to a wonderful school. I went to a little grammar school in the middle of the Shropshire countryside that took over two hours to get to in the morning.

So don't get me wrong, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. But when I was homeless, when I was sofa surfing, my head of year, who I will always... regard as someone that saved my life and someone I'm she's my she's my phone background actually she's on my lock screen a photo of me and her um she did my laundry for me she let me keep my bags keep my clothes in her office when I when I didn't when I didn't you know I wasn't able to carry them around with me every night she made sure that I could shower at school and I didn't have access to a shower she ensured that I had at least one hot meal a day every day bought me toiletries and a towel and things like that now at the stage that I'm at In my life at the moment, my MP, my local MP, the MP for Telford, Lucy Allen, she helped me like absolutely no one else. And you always hear that age old stereotype of Tories don't care about anyone but themselves.

And I would say that she, in my opinion, defies that stereotype. She took a chance on a 17 year old with no experience and a very difficult background. gave me a shot during the 2019 campaign.

She took me under her wing. I ended up working for her for nearly two years before I went to university. She is one of my biggest supporters and an absolutely amazing mentor that I'm privileged to have. There are other amazing people that I have in my life who I can go to for advice, for support, for a shoulder to cry on or someone to lean on when I'm having a tough day because not every day is like this.

I spend There are days that I, and again, getting a bit vulnerable, but there are days that I spend just curled up in bed watching Netflix and not able to do anything because it's, it's, and this is something about the process that isn't off, that isn't always talked about. You know, you see polished products on TV with hair done and, and. makeup on and a nice jumper i'm very sorry we're wearing more makeup than her what are you talking about once you get into your 40s yeah you go yeah this is the best it's gonna be yeah this is it's a journey i would say and i'm not i'm by no means perfect i'm by no means healed but yeah i'd say that's how i get through it on a day-to-day basis i've got amazing support systems now that i that i'm very grateful to have and i didn't have when i was younger i very well medicated. And I just take every day as it comes.

And how have your experiences shaped how you think about, you know, you mentioned working for a conservative MP. How have your experiences shaped how you think about the world? Because you mentioned not wanting to be a victim. And of all the people in the world who could be a victim if they wanted to, and who could cash in on it and capitalize on it, someone in your position, is like perfectly placed to do that.

And it's the trendy thing nowadays to be a victim. And you get people who, you know, had two parents, went to a nice school, went to a good university, and because of the color of their skin or because they're a woman or because of this, they're on TV talking about how oppressed they are. And here you are saying, I don't want to be a victim.

It's the monopoly of victimhood, isn't it? I think as cliche as it sounds, I've learned to... realize what the big things are what the big issues are and i i've i guess that's part of that's partly because of what i experienced but i've come to realize that bad hair day is in the end of the world and you know the this idea that everyone has to be a victim that that your your horrible experiences or your your inherent your inherent immutable characteristics somehow make you you more or less deserving of of special treatment or support or the victimhood badge.

I just don't buy into any of it. And that's part of the reason why I'm a conservative. I always get asked, why are you a conservative? Surely you'd be a Labour supporter.

Surely you'd be left wing if you have gone through all of this. You know, you were a victim of the system. How are you not left wing? How do you not want to change it?

And I always respond in that I do want to change it, but I don't think that you can enforce change and impact change by perpetuating that victimhood. I think that there's something deeply anti-aspirational about this whole identity politics, critical race theory, identitarian victimhood, victimhood, I don't know, story, culture, sorry. No, no, don't quote us. Yeah, I just think that there's something...

so deeply anti-aspirational about it the idea that if you have gone through a terrible time or you were born with with a different color skin that you are always going to be behind and that nothing is ever going to go your way that you need to have special treatment you need to have the the white man step aside for you to be successful it suggests that that people aren't capable of succeeding off their own merit and i think that with the right support and don't get me wrong especially for for For those that have experienced child sexual exploitation or grooming or child sexual abuse, it is very, very hard. It isn't easy to pick yourself up and to get out of that. But with the right sort of support, anyone is capable of achieving.

And I think that the conservative messaging in Mosho is far more akin to aspiration and hand-ups, not hand-outs. than the left-wing rhetoric. I think that there's just, there's nothing that I see that is, that is fruitful or progressive or positive about telling people that you're a victim. You should feel angry at the world.

You should hate everyone around you for, for making life so tough for you. No, it should be, the messaging should be. Yes, life can be bad.

Life can be really, really, really sucky. But you are capable of achieving. You're capable of doing something better. You're capable of lifting yourself out of that situation.

And these are the things that we want to do to support you with that. This is a question that I didn't think I was going to ask, but you're such a remarkable person that I'm going to ask it. What do you think about the way that we talk about exploitation, rape? abuse in the media now and particularly with things like me too etc etc do you think we discuss it in an honest way do you disagree with the way that we discuss it i think that the one thing i would say is while again the conversation is more open than it used to be people still aren't being candid about the nature of this type of crime what are we not saying i mean as as in my own experience i've been asked going on shows before can you not mention the word rape or can you not mention the the word pakistan that is me down to a t is that something i'll put my foot right it's essentially a guy a gagging clause that that you know you're allowed to discuss this when you're doing like tv or radio that type of thing well they're asking you not to say the word rape or not to mention the race because somehow it is too too much for the modernists it's unpalatable to talk about it in such in such a frank detail And I think that that's what I would say needs to be improved upon. Because realistically, if the police were allowed to say that white working class girls, victims of child sexual exploitation were white slags and packy shaggers, why can I not repeat it on national TV and expose exactly what it is that they said?

Why is there this double standard in the media and in television and radio that... Somehow the girls that were abused, raped, exploited, groomed by predominantly Pakistani Muslim men were forced to go through this. But we as a society can't bear repeating it in open and honest detail.

I think that the conversation is far from frank and open and honest. And that there needs to be a lot more done to unwrap the cotton wool around the mainstream media. And say that... As long as we have these sensitivities and these no-go areas around the topic of rape and exploitation, then little girls are going to continue to be abused because it just furthers this culture of ignorance and victim blaming and silence and shame.

Silence only serves to protect the perpetrators of this crime. And cultural sensitivity, political correctness only serves to protect the predators. Samantha, do you think one of the reasons why, with the Me Too movement, Harvey Weinstein was such a huge figure is that, and push back if you disagree on this, is because...

He very neatly encapsulated what we want a villain to be. You know, he's a rich white guy who's powerful, you know, and people felt that they couldn't, you know, they couldn't challenge him. And he obviously acted.

It was just him. And then everybody else kind of obeyed him. And also his victims are very high status women usually, right?

Yeah. So that helps. Yeah. I did a piece for the Mail on this issue, exactly, the Harvey Weinstein. And, and, um.

The Harvey Weinstein issue and the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell case. The reason why these celebrity cases, same with Prince Andrew, were such a national scandal, why the papers were doing double page spreads on Ghislaine Maxwell's court outfit and covering it wall to wall for weeks and weeks was because it appeals to our societal our societal intrigue and interest with the with the idea of celebrity these were this was a lifestyle that the ordinary person couldn't even dream of you know private jets and and epstein island and celebrities and millions of dollars being traded for sexual for sexual favors it was very much glamorized and mystified and played into the into the myth of hollywood i would say and and it was far more glamorous to talk about billionaires on on private boats and and islands than you know a working class white girl from telford being being raped around the back of of a of a kebab shop it's in my opinion it was so it was so highly covered because the victims and the perpetrators and to some extent the victims were celebrities they were part of this jet-setting lifestyle that many of us can only dream of whereas Once again, it isn't glamorous or cool or fashionable to talk about little girls in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, Banbury, Telford, etc. being groomed and exploited by predominantly Pakistani men. And do you think that was one element, or there's lots of elements of the whole Me Too movement, that ignored these types of crimes?

I think that the Me Too movement is a difficult one because... It was very much, it existed in a time and place in Hollywood, specifically, I would say. It was the idea that it was demystifying the Hollywood myth and showing that sexual abuse and exploitation and harassment was very much alive and well in Hollywood.

And lifting the lid on this culture of misogyny and grooming and victim blaming within Hollywood. I think that child sexual exploitation and abuse is completely removed from that. It's an entirely different kettle of fish because, and this isn't me saying that it shouldn't be, that people shouldn't raise the sort of awareness of child sexual exploitation they did in the Me Too movement.

But I think that, again, it all comes down to the class of the victims and the perpetrators. The Me Too movement was a... specifically focused on this celebrity, the celebrity lifestyle. And it did snowball to some extent.

And there were ordinary women, quote unquote, that were speaking out about the abuse they experienced. But it was very much to do with Hollywood and the celebrity world and the sexual harassment that was going on there. Whereas what is happening in towns like Telford, Rotherham, Rochdale, etc. is a lot closer to home.

a grooming crisis in our own backyards. And that is very, very different from the Me Too movement. Samantha, there's one other question that I wanted to ask you, because of all the people that we've interviewed, pretty much other than Ella, you have more reason than anyone, I think, to hate men.

And we do live in a society where increasingly that narrative, from certain quarters, at least, seems to me like it is being advanced and it is being pushed. you know toxic masculinity this and men are that and the patriarchy and this and that and like i say i mean if you were if you were to sit in that chair and go you know what i think men are trash i'd be like you know what i generally don't agree but i think you've got a reason to you've got a pass you you've got you can say that what do you make of the way we have the conversations around these issues men and women men's roles women's roles in society etc i think There's a very big difference between hating men and wanting to change the culture around masculinity and the way that women are treated in society. I don't hate men. I think that many men are perfectly decent and upstanding human beings. I'm definitely not putting on my tinfoil hat and raising my pitchfork and my stake and calling for all of them to be burned in the town square.

But I think that... The way that the conversation needs to be had, and this is the problem with some radical feminist movements. I would call myself a feminist, but I wouldn't say that I'm a new wave or a current feminist in the way that it seems to have spiraled now, where people say the future is female and F all men and that we should eat all men, that all men are awful, horrible, nasty criminals.

and that they should all be expelled from society. The conversation really needs to be around how can we deconstruct these ideas of toxic masculinity and misogyny in society, because misogyny is still a very, very big problem, especially in the major institutions of this country and across the world. The police, the government, the way that women are treated in... in all areas of society still needs to be improved.

And it would be remiss to, obviously women can be perpetrators of sexual abuse as well. That does happen. But in the majority of cases, men are the perpetrators and women are the victims or little girls or little boys are the victims, women and children.

So it's about having an honest and open conversation, but also not villainizing everybody. There's... I think that we seem to have lost nuance in modern political debate. There's no ability for people to say that this, and it's the same with Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, that you aren't able to say that not all Pakistani people are bad, not all Muslims are bad, but there is a significant problem within this community that is unique, for the most part, to this community.

This is going on and we need to figure out how we can address it. It's the same with men. People say, oh, it's not all men that do this.

You know, women can be rapists too, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes, that's true. I'm not denying that. I don't think that anyone is denying that it's not all men that are perpetrators of sexual abuse, but there are too many women that are victims.

There was a, I think it was an NSPC study that came out that found that, I think it was like 96% of... of girls had experienced some sort of sexual harassment before the age of 16. That's a staggering figure. So yes, it isn't all men, but it's too many women, in my opinion. So we can have this conversation and say that there is a problem with a lot of men abusing women and children, but that doesn't mean that it's all men that are bad and evil and horrible.

And this is where maybe I would add even a little bit more news. The fact that there are a lot of female victims does not mean that there are a lot of male perpetrators necessarily, right? It could be that a small minority of people commit a lot of those offenses or do a lot of those things over time. And I think that's maybe where part of the nuance is getting lost because I actually happen to think, and this is just my opinion, that one of the solutions to some of these problems is for men who are not like that to have more of a role in protecting women. Right?

And I think... That's where my concern is sometimes when we start to tar people with the same brush. You're actually pushing good men away from being involved and being active in looking after people.

Because that is, you know, it's not a fashionable thing to say, but that is part of men's jobs is to protect others. You know, protect children, protect women, protect partners, etc. And I think we're losing that a little bit as well.

I think that you're absolutely right in the fact that men... can do a lot more to help protect women and children. I think that it's the discussion that's had the topic of what can we be doing to raise our sons and our young men to be better than previous generations that came before them. It starts at a very young age, this toxic ideology and this idea that women are somehow beneath men or that they are... only to be used for sexual gratification or pleasure that somehow women are inferior, needs to be tackled and addressed.

In the same way, when it comes to racism, people aren't born racist, people aren't born sexual predators. This behavior is learned. There was a case in Telford, and it's an ongoing case, so I won't comment on it too much, but there was an ongoing case in Telford of a boy, a 13-year-old boy, who has been arrested for, I believe it's nine counts of rape.

and several other sexual assaults of women and girls aged 16 to 34. This is a 13-year-old boy that has been accused of these crimes. He wasn't born that way. This behavior is learned, whether he learned it from his father or his schoolmates or his uncle or his brothers or whoever it is. Someone taught this little boy that it was okay to sexually assault women. And so...

tackling that at a very young age and dispelling this sort of ideology and teaching young boys how to be good men how to be good upstanding law-abiding respectful citizens is the key i think to to to making a difference but let's let's not get get it twisted people will always there will always be bad people in the world people will always rape abuse exploit people will always be be horrible but i think that So long as we continue to put up these barriers to open an honest conversation, and one of those barriers is this lack of nuance and the rhetoric that all men are bad and that all men should be exiled and whatever. Well, like I say, you'd be forgiven for saying that if you wanted to. But I guess my point would be with that 13-year-old boy, you actually think you put your finger on it, which is...

If that boy had a father in the home who taught him how to treat women properly, that never would have happened. And I think that's part of the answer as well, is for men to be better. I think that's really important.

Samantha, anyway, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you, although obviously it's a difficult conversation, but an important one. And I'm really glad we've been able to have you on to keep reminding people that these things aren't over. It's still going on. There's still work to do. We thank you for sharing your story with us and for coming on.

You've got a bright future ahead of you. So we wish you all the best. Before we let you go, we've got our final question and some questions from our supporters that they've already submitted.

Our final question, as always, is what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be? I'm going to go a little bit left field here. And we've obviously talked a lot about child sex exploitation, grooming, and... I would say that would be the obvious answer for what we need to be talking about more in society. So I'm going to keep it light here and say opera.

Opera is the thing that we need to be talking about more. And I don't think my Twitter followers, I tweeted about it earlier, and I don't think that it was a bit too niche for them. But I believe that opera is the best genre of music out there.

I believe that it should be mainstream, that everyone should be taking their children to see La Traviata or Carmen or Cosi Fantuti. I think that opera needs to be spoken about and revered more than it is in society. Spoken like a real conservative.

What can I say? You know, my grandfather, here's a story for you. My grandfather was a working class joiner brought up in Wigan in the north of England.

And he volunteered to join the army during the Second World War. And he went and part of where he fought was in Italy. And he fell in love with opera.

He fell in love with opera, he fell in love with Italy. So he came back and he was working in the railways with all these big other working class men. And they all thought he was a bit odd because he would be there working whilst listening to La Traviata. I love that. I think that opera is, and this is turning into a conversation about accessibility in opera, but...

Opera is far more accessible than it used to be and there's a joy to be found in appreciating a good musical score. Forget what, forget Lizzo and Sam Smith and Harry Styles and all of this modern filth that's getting put out. You are so conservative, Samantha.

It's modern filth! I think, I always like to think of myself as an 85 year old woman trapped in... You've got her opinions. Yeah, trapped in a young person's body. You know, all I...

It's to sit at home with a glass of wine. I do this sometimes. Sit at home with a glass of wine and a camembert and listen to Kosti Fantuti or La Boheme on the radio. It's something that I think we need to get.

Reject modernity and embrace tradition. That's my message for all of your lovely followers. We're going to call this episode Ban This Modern Filthy.

Samantha, where can people find you online if they want to follow your work and follow along with your career? I'm on Twitter at Samantha Taghoy. That's T-A-G-H-O-Y, spelled as it sounds. I'm not really active on anything else. I think that Twitter is my poison of choice.

But if people are interested in reading my print journalism, I'm a columnist for The Spectator and The Daily Mail. If you search Samantha Smith, Spectator or Samantha Smith. Daily Mail. You might find a 1970s peace activist first, but I'll be the second one that shows up.

So yeah, that's the way that people can find me. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure to meet you.

And thank you for watching and listening. We'll see you on Locals for the bonus questions. Take care and see you soon.

Transcript for:Samantha Smith: Advocacy Against Grooming Gangs

Transcript for:
Samantha Smith: Advocacy Against Grooming Gangs