Groomed: A National Scandal is a new feature-length documentary by Anna Hall, who has been researching the issue of so-called grooming gangs over many years. While most sexual abuse takes place within families and institutions and is perpetrated by white men, the pattern of grooming explored in Groomed focuses on child sexual exploitation perpetrated by men of largely Pakistani origin / heritage.
The documentary asks the question “Who knew what, when?” and identifies how the sexual exploitation of underage girls was enabled to carry on for decades due to improper investigations, research being buried and councils, police forces and the Home Office not taking any action because the girls were branded ‘prostitutes’ and those in power did not want to “rock the multicultural boat”.
Some of the major locations covered in the documentary are Manchester, Rochdale and Bradford although it is clear from the documentary that grooming gangs are operating across the UK (on 22 October Julie Bindel wrote in detail about current and historic sexual exploitation of girls in London).
Meeting Notes
William began the meeting by began acknowledging how inconceivable it was that the state had failed to prevent hundreds of vulnerable young girls from being exploited because of fear that revealing the ethnicity of perpetrators would ‘give an argument to’ far right and anti-immigration groups / organisations (e.g. British National Party, English Defence League, UKIP) and cause social disturbances. These groups were very active at the time the revelations first received media attention in 2007 and 2012.
Björn was struck by the similarities of the methods and some of the perpetrator / survivor characteristics described in Groomed and those of the so-called ‘loverboys’ and their victims. Loverboys were first identified in the Netherlands in the late 1990s. The majority of these perpetrators were second generation immigrants with Dutch nationality from Suriname, the former Dutch Antilles and Morocco. The term was also used in Belgium and Germany for groups of boys and men following similar grooming tactics, but has now come into disuse.
Robbie noted that the BBC had released a mini series in 2017 called Three Girls based on the Rotherham men who sexually exploited and abused young girls. The question Robbie could not get past is why the series, which attracted around 8 million viewers per episode, did not receive anywhere near the same kind of public or political attention currently given to Adolescence.
Robbie noted that men’s sexual exploitation of women and girls is endemic and that a lot of white men also engage sexually abuse and exploit girls (e.g. Jimmy Savile, Rochdale MP Cyril Smith, Rolf Harris and many others). It is undeniable that the drivers that enable men to perpetrate abuse for years and even decades is dependent on both the characteristics of perpetrator and his victims as well as the context in which the men perpetrate the abuse.
Oliver reflected on the chronology of the case an what else was going on at the time. Feminist writer and activist Julie Bindel for instance investigated sex trafficking from the 1990s onwards and found over 200 women at risk. Whilst there was a growing public awareness of child sexual abuse (sometimes mislabelled ‘paedophilia’) there were also those who seemed to perceive this as a moral panic. Child sexual abuse was even satirised in a special of the British TV Series Brass Eye called Paedogeddon in 2001.
In Bindel’s view the Pakistani community had specific issues and had developed a template of abuse that was shared via minicab services and kebab shops. With regards to this Oliver wondered whether another possible factor was the budding incel / pickup culture, as described in James Bloodworth’s 2025 book Lost Boys: A Personal Journey Through the Manosphere.
David wondered whether in these cases of mass abuse the lack of action by the authorities had as much to do with the type of crime (male sexual violence towards girls) and the characteristics of survivors as the ethnicity of the perpetrators. For instance if the police had detected a group of Pakistani men who were stealing cars and robbing banks, would they still have held off for fear of seeming to target an ethnic minority? The fact that these victims were regularly referred to as ‘child prostitutes’ and drug addicts who were pursuing a dangerous lifestyle were surely an equally important factors in allowing the men to continue the abuse for years. Particularly as there were many other adults, ranging from social workers, police, parents and teachers, who noticed or knew what happening but did nothing.
Robbie added that both the migrant communities of the majority of the perpetrators and the white communities the girls belonged to (as depicted in the drama Three Girls) were ‘difficult to reach’ and alienated from the police, which could also be considered as an additional factor that enabled the abuse. Though it is worth considering that ‘difficult to reach’ and alienated sounds like the police did not really bother.
Robbie thought it would be useful to also take time to discuss men’s perpetration of sexual abuse more generally in our discussions (e.g. boys abused by members of the Catholic Church or in boarding schools) and to think about similarities and differences. With regards to the abuses explored in Groomed Robbie wondered whether there were specific assumptions or perceptions that men from other ethnic backgrounds may have towards white women in particular that contributed to the sexual exploitation (e.g. thinking that white women are ‘promiscuous’ / always want sex). These views are of course routinely communicated in popular media from Hollywood films, TikTok videos, music videos to pornography.
Oliver talked about his own journey from a ‘leftish’ view that blames social issues on economic factors to feeling that culture needs to be taken more seriously when thinking about social issues. He reflected that for a lot of people in Britain right now, the importance of religion to many communities may be hard to recognise and difficult to understand.
We considered the attitudes to these issues held by ‘right wingers’ specifically those men who see themselves as sticking up for (white) female victims of male violence. There have been a number of such cases in the last couple of years, including the riots in response to a mass stabbing of 3 young girls in Southport by 17 year-old Axel Muganwa Rudakubana.
We also considered the responses from various people in the public eye to the crimes documented in Groomed, noting that Elon Musk and Julie Bindel have both expressed concerns about the grooming gangs but come at it from very different directions. We also reflected on the fact that author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is vocal in her criticism of Islam, has focused on the rise in rape figures in Europe and related it explicitly to increased immigration by Muslim men (see her 2021 book Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights).
David made the point that ‘cultures’ are not monolithic and people speaking on behalf of a community might not actually represent it. Women in particular women are likely to be underrepresented as spokespeople of communities and male community leaders are just another branch of the patriarchy. In addition, Oliver pointed to important differences between ‘subcultures’ which might be glossed over in generalised conversations because we see them as more homogenous than they really are. When we are speaking about muslims broadly, we ignore the fact that there are variations between groups of muslims and Islamic schools and branches with regards to their attitudes towards women and girls and other cultural influences that may mediate them.
Overall we felt that Groomed was both enraging and heartbreaking. Hall did a great job in laying bare the misogynistic attitudes that enabled the groomers to sexually exploit and abuse girls for years, like the social workers’ and the police’s victim blaming perspective that the girls were ‘putting themselves at risk’.
Something else we thought was noticeable and worth mentioning is the fact that two female investigators from the time spoke openly about the failures in the documentary, but that no male officers, investigators or persecutors appeared who were involved at the time.
We were quite surprised that the documentary did not mention Julie Bindel at all. Although Bindel had written an article about the so-called grooming gangs for the Sunday Times as far back as 2007, the documentary only mentioned Andrew Norfolk ‘breaking the story’ 5 years later in 2012. You can read a timeline of Bindel’s reporting on her Substack. In this Bindel also shines a light on the media’s reluctance to report on the sexual abuse and exploitation, which was not explicitly focussed on in Groomed.
For those who would like to learn more, we recommend watching UnHerd’s video on the grooming gangs scandal. It features the short film ‘Amber’, telling the story of one of the survivors as well as a Q&A with the film’s director, Julie Bindel and Maggie Oliver. Oliver, the former detective featured in ITV’s Groomed, has set up a foundation supporting survivors of childhood sexual abuse and exploitation.
With regards to the production of the documentary, we wondered whether using the real voices of some of the women who wanted to remain anonymous added any value to the documentary. To some of us it felt like it made the interviews feel more unreal / staged rather than helping the viewer connect with the survivors and their experiences. There was also some concern that using the women’s real voices may put them at risk of being identified.
(LAST UPDATED: 25 October 2025)
