Revealed: Rotherham sex abuse victim let down AGAIN after police lost ‘key evidence’ in investigation

Tina, not her real name, has carried the scars of child abuse for her whole life.

A survivor of the Rotherham grooming gangs scandal, she was targeted by ruthless predators from the age of 11.

When concerns were raised with South Yorkshire Police, they failed to investigate.

The force neglected urgent reports from Tina’s mum, she would report her missing and give the police locations where she was being kept by the rapists. But still the police did not act on any of the intelligence.

As their sexual exploitation worsened, Tina became pregnant by one of her rapists aged 12.

It was only when she reported the pregnancy that the police began to act, arresting several men. However, they gave two men a caution, even after they admitted having sexual contact with a girl aged just 12.

A young teenager, Tina became a mum. It was at this point that she says she wanted to focus on raising her baby and getting an education, having lost faith in the police.

“My baby healed me,” Tina told GB News. “I just decided that I didn’t want to go any further with anything. I just needed to focus on being a mother, being a mum, raising it, making sure my baby had a good life and getting an education.”

Over a decade later, the extent of the child sex abuse scandal in Rotherham was exposed when the Jay report was published.

It found that, at a conservative estimate, at least 1,400 children — predominantly white girls — had been groomed, raped, and exploited by gangs of predominantly Pakistani men. And finally, South Yorkshire Police took note of Tina’s plight.

At first, they weren’t prepared to take on her case. She said that when they arrived at her house, they were unaware that she had been made pregnant at the hands of an abuser.

“Their faces dropped a mile when I said that,” she said.

The officers finally did their research, launched an investigation, and over 17 years after she was first exploited, Tina finally achieved some justice when a gang of perpetrators were convicted.

Tina explained: “It was just a sense of relief because obviously Rotherham is not a big place and bumping into your perpetrator was regular. It wasn’t an easy thing.”

South Yorkshire Police paid £50,000 in compensation to Tina after failing to protect her from child abuse gangs. But their failures did not stop there.

GB News can reveal that her exploitation continued into her adult life after she was targeted by a coercive abuser, with a botched investigation by South Yorkshire Police missing key evidence.

Soon after receiving her compensation money, Tina met a local businessman from Sheffield.

He offered advice on investing into his business so that she could get on his books, receive support from his legal team, and get a mortgage.

Tina said: “So I agreed. He asked me to invest money into his business, and it would provide all of these mortgage possibilities if I were employed by him.”

“He asked me for £14,000 to start off with to invest into his business and then ensured that I would get it back as soon as the mortgage advisers were ready to sell me a mortgage.

“So I decided that, okay, that’s fine. He’s a businessman in the way he’s talking. I can trust this guy. I did it. Very soon afterwards, he asked for another amount, which was around four or five grand.”

The demands for more money kept coming and after a couple of months, Tina had given the man £32,000.

As Christmas approached, he asked for even more cash. Tina said that for the first time, she refused, pointing out that she needed to make sure that she was sorted for Christmas.

“And within a couple of days he blocked me on everything.”

Six months later, Tina said he unblocked her and told her to visit his house, where he apologised and said he would hand over the cash.

But before she could leave, he said he wanted to have sex with her.

She said: “So at that point I had to do that. I felt like if I’d not done that, my money was just never going to come to me.”

Tina said that this coercive sexual abuse continued for three years.

“He’d block me for months, then contact me again and ‘say I’m sorry. You’ve been patient. I’m just grateful that you haven’t been to the police and you haven’t got anybody else involved. Come and talk to me again’,” she told GB News.

“I’d get there and obviously it’s £32,000, I need to go, whether I have to have sex with him again before I leave.”

Shockingly, Tina’s precarious situation seemed to become even more dangerous as she started to seriously fear for her safety.

“I already knew he had guns. He told me that he were a licensed firearms holder. He told me during stories were a soldier and he’d shot and killed people.

“He told me some graphic stories of him being a soldier and having to kill people.”

When Tina was asked by GB News if she thought he was trying to scare her with this information, she replied instantly: “Definitely, yeah.”

And on one occasion, Tina said that these discussions about guns became more than just stories about the past.

“He pulled a gun out from a sofa and were like messing around with it and he came right close up to me, put it towards my head and said, ‘if I want to, I could do it. And no one will ever know about that.’

“And I just thought to myself at that point, this has gotten dangerous.

“It were horrendous. And then to think that I still had to have sex with him after that before coming out of that house. It was traumatic.

“I can look back and see that it was very similar to what I went through as a child. Being forced to have sex to keep some freedom.”

Thinking back to her experience as a child, Tina also decided that she didn’t have faith in the police to investigate the abuse, so she recorded a video during one of her visits to the coercive businessman.

GB News has heard the recordings, which include a direct threat to her life. The anger in his voice is palpable: “I can come over there and burst your arse. Just come shoot your house up. But you know what would stop me from shooting your house up? Your baby, I wouldn’t do that.”

Moments later, he says: “You f***ing think I don’t know where you live? Let me ask you one question: You think I don’t know where you f***ing live? You make a wrong mistake.”

In case notes obtained by GB News, a South Yorkshire Police detective said that this language did not constitute a threat.

They later said that the victim, Tina, had “clearly lied and undermined the investigation”.

The notes also reveal that officers thought she gave “conflicting accounts” of why she had given the money.

In one part of her recordings, she refers to paying for the businessman to take a trip to visit his family, but it comes amid a wider record of major payments.

When Tina reported what she was experiencing, Sheffield CID took over her case.

The businessman was eventually arrested and police recovered a replica firearm, but he was released without charge. Weeks later, officers finally spoke to Tina.

Tina said that an investigating officer told her that he’d denied having sexual contact with her and that she had gifted him the money.

“How could he possibly deny it in an interview? And the officer just said we can’t prove it. We can’t prove that. There’s nothing, there’s no proof.

“I just kinda looked back to when I was younger. Same situation. There’s just nothing that they can do. Again.”

Even though she had video evidence of the abuse, South Yorkshire Police failed to progress the investigation.

Months later, they sent Tina a letter to say that they dropped the case entirely.

“I were angry, upset. But I felt like I can’t sit back and let this happen again,” she said.

With the support of a trusted friend, Tina submitted a subject access request.

Her friend was stunned when he learned what had been happening: “I was totally, totally horrified that this could have happened to her yet again. And I then asked South Yorkshire Police for all the evidence that had been used to decide not to proceed. And it took six months and an awful lot of effort for them to provide that evidence.”

But not all of the evidence was provided. The key recording of the threats Tina had submitted was missing.

“It was on an encrypted CD. And when we looked at it and there was only one video, we couldn’t believe it. We were just so, so shocked that a critical piece of evidence was missing.”

South Yorkshire Police agreed to a Victim’s Right to Review, when the force must restart an investigation.

It took a year. At the end of the process, the force said exactly the same thing: There was not enough evidence and they would not be proceeding.

Tina and her trusted friend told GB News that they had lost hope with the investigating officers, but they were now desperate for justice.

“I want a right and just investigation and an apology, because I shouldn’t be having to do all these things to get the correct outcome.”

And she wants security and peace.

“I just want to feel safe. I just want to feel safe. I just want my life to go back to where it was. Feeling comfortable, feeling safe. I don’t want to walk out of my house feeling like I’m about to watch my back again. I’ve done that before. I did it for years and I don’t want to have to go back to that.”

South Yorkshire Police Detective Superintendent James Axe, Head of Professional Standards, said: “It’s clear that Tina has suffered a horrendous ordeal which will undoubtably [sic] have a profound impact on her for the rest of her life.

“An internal professional standards process is underway in relation to aspects of the handling of this case. In addition, a criminal investigation into the fraud allegations remains live. This investigation is being reviewed holistically, to ensure all of the wider matters raised are taken into consideration and assessed against a criminal threshold.

“While these investigations remain ongoing we are unable to comment any further. We continue to offer Tina support and safeguarding advice, and provide updates on the matters she has raised when possible, as this work continues.”