Welsh victim of grooming gangs to launch campaign for Wales-wide inquiry

Emily Price

The Welsh victim at the centre of a row in the Senedd over the grooming gangs scandal wants to launch a campaign for a Wales-wide inquiry.

Emily Vaughn – not her real name – was one of the victims of child sexual exploitation and trafficking who took part in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, also known as the Jay Report, a decade ago.

The seven year probe, which concluded in 2022, gathered evidence of how children were being sexually abused in Wales and England.

It found that the current system is fundamentally flawed and unable to protect vulnerable children at risk of being groomed, coerced and threatened.

There were 20 recommendations in the final report which the UK Conservatives were tasked with implementing.

But after the party lost the general election – the responsibly was passed to the new UK Labour Government.

On Thursday (January 16), the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a £10 million plan for a series of local inquiries into grooming gangs, as well as a “rapid” review of the current scale of exploitation across the UK.

Harrowing

Emily, who was trafficked from south Wales to Telford when she was a child, says there should be a fresh inquiry that focuses solely on Wales.

She said: “I’ve done work with people in Wales who have been victims of grooming gangs. I think there are major issues with the way data is collected.

“There are so many county lines coming in and out of Wales that child sexual abuse data has become hidden. But there are grooming gangs in Wales – of course there are, why would there not be?”

The harrowing abuse Emily suffered at just 11 years old began when her neighbour returned from prison for drug dealing.

She was later groomed into being a county lines drug trafficker. As a young girl Emily was forced to hide drugs in her hair ties or in her clothing to ferry drugs to users.

Disturbing

In the beginning, Emily says it didn’t feel like exploitation – but the abuse became more disturbing when her first sexual experience involved being gang-raped by three men.

She was later forced to travel from south Wales to Telford where she was involved in a huge child-sex-trafficking gang.

Emily was raped by hundreds of men who paid for either full intercourse or oral sex.

By the age of 20, she had been raped over 1000 times. She says her abusers were mostly Asian – although some of the men were white.

On one occasion when she was threatened with a knife in Telford, Emily called 999.

But when the operator heard that she was from Wales, she was a told to contact her local police force.

Help

She said: “When I first reported what happened to me to the police, they didn’t help me. They didn’t even know what it was or understand what they were doing.

“I think the same thing will still be happening now – that young victims are reaching out to the police and they are not receiving the help they need.”

Emily’s story became the centre of a row in the Senedd on Tuesday (January 14) when the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Darren Millar, read put the graphic details of the sexual abuse she faced as a child.

During a tense FMQs session, Mr Millar was blocked by the Senedd’s Presiding Officer Elin Jones from describing Emily’s shocking experiences.

The Llywydd’s intervention came when emotions among Welsh politicians were already heightened after Tory MS Andrew RT Davies shared a misleading video of 12 year old girls to make a point about refugees coming to Wales.

But questions have been raised about whether debate on the grooming gangs scandal was being shut down in Wales by the Senedd’s speaker.

Emily says Welsh politicians shouldn’t shy away from the graphic details of how children are abused by grooming gangs.

Graphic

She said: “I didn’t know Darren Millar was going to talk about my story in the Senedd on Tuesday – someone sent me the clip last night.

“I was so upset when the Llywydd stopped Darren from speaking out about what happened to me. We shouldn’t shy away from the issue of grooming gangs.

“If politicians don’t want to talk about it – then they will add to the failures.

“If anything happens to children in Wales, they become partly to blame. It should be an uncomfortable issue to discuss.

“If adults find it difficult to hear – imagine how the children who experience sexual abuse and trafficking feel.

“The Llywydd shouldn’t be telling people not to talk about it. It made me so sad to see that when Darren said he was ‘speaking facts’ – she said, ‘no you’re not’. It felt like she was attacking me and all the other victims.

“In terms of the issue becoming politicised, I think people are always going to have a strong opinions on child sexual exploitation. It doesn’t matter if that opinion is aired in a parliament or in someone’s house or a school.”

Courage

Responding to Emily’s comments, Llywydd Elin Jones said: “In calling on Members to avoid using what could be triggering and distressing language, I was seeking to protect victims of abuse.

“I understand now that Emily Vaughn has spoken publicly about her experience. I was not sufficiently aware of that at the time.

“I applaud Emily Vaughn’s courage in speaking out, and I support her and other women and girls in their pursuit of justice.”

Issues

The Welsh Government said earlier this week that it has been in contact with all of Wales’ four police forces and that there are “no current widespread issues with ‘grooming gangs’ in Wales.”

But Emily says she believes this can’t be true.

She said: “Look at the map of the UK – do politicians think that grooming gangs stop when it comes to Wales? People who exploit children don’t care about borders.

“They don’t move from places like Liverpool, Newcastle, Oxford or Telford, then all of a sudden say ‘oh no we can’t go into Wales’.

“The argument that it isn’t happening in Wales is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.”

Campaign

Emily published her best selling book “Enslaved” which documented her true story of survival in 2021.

She said: “When my book came out, I was contacted by so many victims who live in Wales that said the same things had happened to them. Some even thought that my grooming gang was the same as theirs.

“But lots of young people just don’t want to put themselves at risk by coming forward.”

Now in her mid-30s, Emily says she has been working for the last two years on a campaign for a Wales-wide inquiry into grooming gangs.

She said: “The referrals for Wales are so low – to me that’s because the police, social workers and first responders aren’t doing what they should be doing.

“I’ve been working on a campaign for a couple of years now with Shaun Sawyer who was a Chief Constable down in Cornwall and was the NPCC Lead for Modern Slavery.

“We were working on it way before the issue became prominent in the UK Parliament and Senedd again.

“Going through all this since the issue made it back into the headlines has been stressful – but it’s important we talk about the grooming gangs scandal.”

Support

After seeing the clip of Darren Millar speaking about her experience in the Senedd this week – Emily reached out to the Tory leader.

She said: “I’ve told him that I want the same as him – an inquiry into grooming gangs in Wales. I think he’s saying all the right things.

“He sent me a response asking if I wanted to meet and that’s something I’m thinking about. I’m also thinking about how to reach out to the Welsh Government about my story and campaign.

“I’m glad the issue is being talked about again – the more you talk about it, the more children at risk of being groomed can be saved.”

The Welsh Conservatives say they will fully support Emily’s calls for an inquiry.

Darren Millar said: “I am profoundly moved by the courage shown by Emily Vaughan in coming forward to share the horrors she endured at the hands of grooming gangs.

“I have already extended an invitation to Emily to meet with me, and I sincerely hope she will have the opportunity to share her difficult experiences with the Senedd. Her story should leave no one in authority in any doubt about the existence of grooming gangs in Wales.

“It is vital that we put politics aside and recognise our moral duty to uncover the full scale of these heinous offences in Wales. We must leave no stone unturned in addressing these issues once and for all. That is why I am fully supporting Emily’s call for an inquiry.

“We are united in backing her cause. This is not about politics – it’s about justice, compassion, and ensuring that no other victim suffers in silence.”

Exploitation

StatsWales figures show that between 2022 and 2023 there were 2,389 cases of child exploitation in Wales.

This included reported cases of child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation and child trafficking.

The First Minister’s Official Spokesman said: “We will continue to do everything we can as a government to ensure young people in Wales are safe from the horrific crimes of exploitation and sexual abuse.

“Whilst we have received assurances from all Welsh police forces that there are no current widespread issues with grooming gangs here, we welcome the decision by the Home Secretary to ask all police forces, including in Wales, to review historic gang exploitation cases where no further action was taken.

“We also welcome the UK Government’s announcement of a national review across the UK led by Dame Louise Casey and will be engaging fully with this review.”