I was abused at 14 by an ‘untraceable’ illegal migrant still walking our streets… a new grooming scandal is on the way

TERRIFIED Fiona Goddard, 15, cowered in a grotty flat as one of her many abusers told her, “We could murder you and no one would know it was us.”

Groomed from the age of 13, she was used to threats from the gang who had repeatedly raped her – mainly second or third generation Pakistani men – but there was one set of men she found particularly terrifying.

Fiona GoddardFiona Goddard was groomed and sexually assaulted multiple times from the age of 13[/caption]

PA:Press AssociationThanks to her testimony, nine of her abusers were jailed in 2019[/caption]

Fiona GoddardFiona pictured as a child[/caption]

They were the illegal immigrants – often men wanted for shocking crimes in their own countries – who would brag about how they were “untouchable” by police as no one knew their true identity.

Now in an emotional interview, Fiona, who was abused by over 50 men in Bradford, West Yorkshire as a child, says many were here illegally – including one man who was castrated in Pakistan for raping children and wanted in the Philippines for sex crimes.

The mum-of-six, whose brave testimony helped place nine of her abusers behind bars in 2019, warned the government’s failures in dealing with the current migrant crisis is potentially creating a “grooming gang scandal 2.0.”

Fiona’s grooming gang hell started when she was 13 and she and a friend from her care home asked an Asian man she knew for a lighter. He took them both to a petrol station and bought them some vodka.

It wasn’t long before he and other men he knew began to rape and sexually assault her, after plying her with drugs and alcohol.  

Despite at least seven disclosures of sexual assault and rape, including one instance where she was covered in blood and had strangulation marks, age 14, police and social services did nothing to protect her.

Now, as a result of her experiences, she believes many of the migrants entering the country illegally on boats or lorries are not genuine asylum seekers fleeing persecution or war – but organised criminals.

“They could get a plane with their passports and claim asylum on landing in the UK properly and it would cost a fraction of the price of the boats,” Fiona told The Sun.

“The reason they come over on the boats or on the lorries is that they dump the documents so they can’t prove who they are.

“I was abused by an illegal immigrant called Metz.

“Police told me they’ll never be able to prosecute him because they don’t have a clue who he is.

“He was castrated in Pakistan for sexually abusing kids there. Then he fled to the Philippines and was wanted by firing squads for assaulting women and children before he fled to the UK on the back of a lorry.

“Another illegal immigrant had my 18-year-old friend locked up in a terraced house and she was having to defecate in a bin bag which she had to bury in the back garden.

“He assaulted me and another 14-year-old. He couldn’t physically rape us, obviously, but he sexually assaulted us and that’s just one experience. I could give you a whole list of them.

“He even ‘married’ her in this house and kept her prisoner for God knows how long until she escaped.”

While most of the gangs are British Asians, Fiona says they have family and other links to the illegal migrants.

Fiona and fellow grooming survivor Jamie Leigh Jones are setting up a group called Healing Hearts to support other survivors of abuse

GettyFiona has waived her right to anonymity to campaign for change[/caption]

Fiona believes many migrants crossing by boat are not genuine asylum seekersREUTERS

“One of them, they called ‘Jack the Ripper’, so it shows you what type of men these men were,” she says.

“Each of them would laugh about coming to the UK illegally and the fact that no one knew who they were so they couldn’t ever get done for anything.

“One time I was taken to a house in Leeds and there were some illegal immigrants, Yardies from Jamaica, who were there for a drug exchange. I was told keep your mouth shut because these men could kill you and no one would know it was them’.”

Fiona added: “Illegal immigrants have always been interlinked with the grooming gangs. I can see the same mistakes happening again and it’s disappointing.

“In my case, none of them were prosecuted because police couldn’t trace them.

“None of the illegal immigrants that I came across were fleeing war-torn countries and wanting a better life.

“They drank alcohol, they took cocaine, they abused young girls and they were involved in guns and drug trafficking.

“I agree that people genuinely fleeing war-torn countries should get given asylum but I do not think that the illegal immigrants coming on the back of lorries or boats are anything of the sort, or at least 90 per cent of them aren’t, in my considerable experience.”

Fiona says she is concerned that statistics around illegal immigrants and asylum seekers committing sex crimes are being skewed and those people highlighting the issue are labelled racist or far-right – similar to whistleblowers in the grooming gang scandals.

“I do think they’re making the same mistakes with illegal immigration as they did with the grooming gang scandal,” she said.

“I think the authorities need to face the fact there is a disproportion amount of foreign nationals abusing girls.

“They currently make up 23 per cent of all sex crimes and a large proportion of them are committed against children. It needs to be tackled openly and honestly but instead they’re trying to keep shut people up.

“I can see a grooming gang scandal 2.0 happening because I just feel they’ve not learnt from their mistakes.

“If we’ve learnt anything from the grooming gang scandal it’s that it’s better to be honest and confront things from the get-go than it is to try and ignore and pretend something isn’t happening, even if it is uncomfortable.”

‘Thousands of victims’

Since she held a press conference on grooming gangs in London last month, Fiona says she’s been inundated with survivors of grooming gangs who have lost trust in police or social services and don’t know where to turn.

“Dozens have messaged me just in the past few weeks – probably close to about 60,” she said.

“A lot of them have been given ‘no further action’ from police from the time when they reported the abuse and then have just completely lost faith in the services.

“I’ve passed on information to some of them about how they can ask for the Victims’ Right to Review and also the Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel. I’ve managed to help two people get their cases reopened.

SWNSFiona was abused by over 50 Asian men from age 13[/caption]

AFPFiona says grooming gangs and illegal immigration have always been linked[/caption]

SWNSFiona as a little girl before she was preyed upon by grooming gangs[/caption]

“I’m supporting many other survivors and families. I would think there are thousands of victims across the country who have never had justice.

“One video I did on TikTok about my abuse got 140,000 views and about 3,000 comments from fellow survivors with the same story. It’s a big shock when you see it in black and white.”

Fiona has now teamed up with a survivor of grooming gangs in Oldham, Jamie Leigh Jones, who bravely told her harrowing story of abuse in The Sun last month.

They are setting up Community Interest Company (CIC) called Healing Hearts – Life After Child Sexual Exploitation to help and support survivors – as they say there is little support available for the hundreds of women and children who need it.

Supporting others

Fiona and Jamie want to offer training to schools and care homes to help identify and prevent grooming and act as a liaison between victims and the National Enquiry, as well as offering social gatherings and referrals to housing, education, and other essential services.

They will offer a helpline and advocacy services – supporting survivors to make complaints and helping them navigate the legal system.

They also want to offer trauma therapies and support for survivors, particularly in the “transitional periods” such as after a court case or when no further action is taken after reporting a crime.

“It’s one of the most difficult times for a lot of the survivors.

“I had my mental breakdown after my trial, after the serious case review, when everything went quiet. I stabbed a knife through my hand. There was no support.

‘Nothing’s changed’

“We also want to liaise between survivors and the National Enquiry because so many women and girls have lost their trust in the government.”

“I had a mother call me about her daughter’s case recently and she was told by a police officer to stop describing the perpetrator as Asian.

“It was the same in 2009 when my mum called the police about my abusers and she was told not to describe the perpetrator as an Asian male, and that she should be glad she’s being shown a different culture.

“Nothing has changed, and this makes people understandably very angry and emotional, so they need a third party there to support them.

“The last thing we want is people not coming forward to this inquiry. We need as much data as we can get.”

SWNSFiona hopes Healing Hearts will support survivors to come forward to the National Inquiry[/caption]

PAFiona at a press conference with Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch in June[/caption]

Fiona wants to use her experiences to teach professionals how to recognise signs of grooming and trauma responses.

‘Blood down my legs’

In her own case, she made seven reports to police and social workers about her abuse, but nothing was done.

“They had it documented from March 2008 that I was being abused and they didn’t do anything about it,” she says.

“I made seven disclosures to social services and the police and they didn’t bother investigating – including me coming back to the care home covered in blood.

“I had blood all down my legs, strangulation marks around my neck, my arms, down my back.

“I was crying, they asked me what had happened. I told them I’d been raped. They asked if they should call the police but I said I wanted to go to my room.

“I just ran to my room. I was completely traumatised. They made themselves a cup of tea and never rang the police. I kept my clothes in a carrier bag in my wardrobe for a year.

“If the police had turned up, those clothes would have been there and could have been used as evidence. But he got away with it.

“Years later when I reported it, I remembered his name but I couldn’t ID him or ID the house. I could ID the street but that wasn’t enough so he walked free.”

Another time Fiona remembers turning up at her care home after being spiked by her groomers age 14 – but was labelled an “attention seeker” by staff.

“They had logs of black eyes, broken noses, ribs, head cut open multiple times, basically injuries from head to toe.

“There’s big chunks of my care records missing. I reckon there’s way more than seven instances that were reported.”

In February 2019, nine men were convicted of 22 offences against Fiona at Bradford Crown Court and jailed for a total of 132 years.

However Fiona says many of her other abusers walk free in her community forcing to have to “avoid town and other busy places” in case she runs into any of them.

Fiona’s abusers each got sentences of between 16 and 20 years but she recently found out they had been moved to open prisons for day release after just six. which has also caused her further trauma.

Heartbreaking impact

Mum-of-six Fiona says the grooming has had a lasting effect on her and led to an agonising mental breakdown at the end of her trial, in which she almost lost her kids.

“Everything got too much for me and I just cracked up,” she said.

“They’d moved me away to Lincoln because during the trial, men started breaking into my house to try and get me. I lost everything I owned. I was completely isolated from everything.

“I couldn’t shake the feeling of being a victim rather than a survivor. Everything I did in my life was still controlled by them.

“Then Bradford Social Care took my kids into foster care saying that because I’d been abused and not had therapy yet that I’d be emotionally incapable of looking after my children.

“I had to fight for a year to get them back.”

Fiona was reunited with her three eldest children in November 2023 and has had two more babies since.

But her first child, who she conceived while in care, age 15, was put through a forced adoption because of Fiona’s involvement with grooming gangs.

Fiona’s request to be sent to a new area with her baby was refused due to lack of funding – and she still struggles with the loss of her firstborn.

“She turned 16 a couple of weeks ago so I had a bit of a rough time because I’d missed her GCSE results and her 16th birthday all in the same week.

“I have my younger five kids with me now and they have to go through counselling now because they’ve been taken from me.

“Social services put me through hell but that’s one of the reasons I want to set up this CIC so when survivors are experiencing this type of stuff, we can provide that third person to sit in the meetings and support them.”

Fiona and Jamie are hoping to raise enough money to set up Healing Hearts through this Crowdfunder.

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