I'm here today in Bristol speaking to a young survivor called Kayleigh. Now Kayleigh's exploitation
started when she was just 11 years old.
Several years later, she went on to testify against her perpetrators
in court, and and she was cross examined by 13 different barristers.
Now her perpetrators were found guilty, and in 2015,
a serious case review were carried out highlighting the failures
of professionals.
Now Kayla today has waived her anonymity
and shared her story for the very first time as she feels she's still being failed.
Kayla, your abuse started in 2,010
when you was just 11 years old.
Are you okay to tell us what happened? Yeah.
Let's go back to the beginning. When did this first start?
So I was,
11 years old when it all started
and obviously,
my friend at the time had took me
to,
block of flats and then there was a Somali group of men in there,
and they basically was like raping me and beating me and drugging me for a few years.
The school didn't really pick up on me not coming into school. I had a social worker at the time who didn't really
get involved and
basically look into it as much as she should have. My mum
was busy at the time looking after my granddad so she didn't notice me like going missing.
So you lived with your mum when this all started? Yeah. And authorities became aware
quite quickly, did they? Yeah. So they were,
the first incident that got reported, I think it was
the same year that it all started,
and then they kind of just brushed it off and said, oh, there's not enough evidence. They ain't gonna win in trial.
Mhmm. So they just dismissed it. And then that's when the social workers got involved, and then they were saying the same like, they weren't really
asking questions
or they weren't trying to get any information out of me as to what was actually going on. They were just kinda saying, oh,
naughty 11 year old running away,
that sort of thing. So these men that were raping you, was this part of a gang?
Yeah, It was like quite
a big gang.
I'm doing newspapers
now, they've got it as like Operation Brook. Okay.
Obviously a lot of the information in the articles that they wrote
aren't true.
Okay.
And the police did say at the time that the reason why they've made up
these
sorts of,
like they've covered it a little bit is because they wanted to protect people doing, like, riots and things like that because they knew if they were to put the full
information out there it would cause a lot of trouble.
Okay. So they deliberately
withheld information
about what was happening just to keep
peace really? Yeah. Okay. So these men it says in the report that they were mostly
of Somalia origin. Is that true? Yeah. Okay. And how many men exactly are we talking that you remember?
100.
Oh, wow. Yeah. There was 100 of them. They would move me from flat to flat,
hotel to hotel. There was ruffles
hiding in some of the pubs along like the high streets. Okay.
Yeah. There's a lot of them. And was you expiratory just in Bristol or did they traffic you to other towns and cities? So it was mainly in Bristol,
but on
the the final night when I managed escape
before like I got out the next morning, but that final night that I spent in the hotel room,
they were talking of,
selling me up up into Birmingham.
Okay. So I know these men are definitely linked to multiple different areas across the UK.
And how long were you exploited for?
It I think I was about 13 minutes all ended
so about 2, 3 years. And how did you manage to get out?
So the last night,
we was in a hotel
and obviously I heard them speaking about selling me up into like Birmingham. Okay.
And I just remember thinking at the time like if I get out now they're either gonna kill me or sell me to a different brothel, and then they're gonna go after my niece.
And I just couldn't bear the thought of that, and I just thought if I
I'd either die trying or I'll die anyway if they take me. So when I when we came out of the doors to the hotel, there was a group of them in front of me and a group of them behind me, and it was actually Christmas morning, I think it was, and we came out and I just ran and that I there was a bus parked there and I said to the bus driver, like, please I need to get home, I need to get home. I didn't have any money or no phone because they took everything from me. And obviously the bus driver was like, you got any money and I said no and then a woman behind me obviously heard what was going on and was like, I'll pay for you. Okay. So she took me to my sis, walked me, got on the bus and then she walked me all the way back from the bus stop to my sister's house and then that's how I got back.
You mentioned that you were scared for your niece. Would they often make threats towards your family if you were to leave? Yeah. They would say to me all the time, like, if you didn't come back because they would take me home every now and then to
go in and show my face and they would wait outside and they would say to me like if you don't come back out like we're gonna find your family, we're gonna kill them
and yeah. You must have been terrified.
Yeah. Okay.
So you ended up going to trial.
How did the investigation
start?
So I told my sister at the time
that, obviously what was going on. So my sister and my mom went to the hotel,
and then the hotel was refusing to tell them who booked the hotel room. So my sister called the police. They come out, and then they was, like, looking into that. And then at first, the police started turning up saying to me, like, oh, are you are you a prostitute? Are you selling yourself for money or for drugs? And I was like, no. How old were you at this point? I'm 13.
So you're 13 years old and they're accusing you of being a prostitute.
Yeah.
And then
after,
so they start saying things like that and I was saying no, and then I done, like, a 15 hour long statement
of, like, multiple stuff that was happening.
And then that's when it started to go to trial, and then it opened up multiple
other cases too.
Okay.
And how many men do you remember that was in that trial?
13. I think that may have been more that wasn't sentenced, but 13 men got convicted. Did you testify against all of them? I can't. That's all. Did you testify against all 13 men? Yeah. Oh, wow.
That must have been really difficult.
So you was cross examined
by
13 different barristers
as a child.
What was that like?
It was
difficult and scary because at the time I was so
because I was a minor they wanted to keep my identity hidden,
and I wasn't allowed to stand in the courtroom.
So I was in a separate room for that video call, and I just remember,
like, there,
that the defendant, the
I don't know what they're called, but the people that were trying to say that I was in the wrong. The barristers? Yeah. Like, they were just, like, bashing me down with, like, horrible comments of, like, oh, you were just a slag.
You just wanted to have sex with older men.
You've lied about your age. You just wanted alcohol and money, and I was just like I didn't know what to say because And was you still 13 at this point? Yeah. I was I I think I was about 14 when it went to court. I think about about 14. About 13, 40. And that's how they treated you? Yeah. And I was also like gonna say I they was I got taken away from my mum and I was put in like a safe house whilst it was all going on,
and my teacher had to come with me at the time because my mum wasn't for some reason my mum wasn't allowed to come. Okay. I'm guessing because she was also a witness, they didn't want us mixing.
So it was just me
on on my own with, like, my teacher in the safe house for, like, a whole week, and then every day going to court from, like, 6 in the morning until, like, 8 o'clock at night, and then the drive back, they would drive through, like, country lane say that we didn't know where we was going. So that the whole day altogether was like 12 plus hours,
like 7 days a week it took to like And how long did the trial go on for?
I think it was just over a week. Okay.
Did you feel safe?
I mean, it's difficult because they never really made me feel safe
anyway with the, like, with, like, the police, I mean, like Mhmm. They would,
like, interview me and then take, like, they like, when they interviewed me, they just took me straight back home and then they just left me and didn't contact me again for, like, weeks weeks weeks, like,
just left me there, not even updating me on anything. Mhmm. And then since the trial, it's been pretty much the same, like they were sending,
updates to my sister at first.
And my sister was telling me everything because she was obviously didn't know if I wanted that information or if it was gonna affect me. Yeah. So it wasn't until I turned 18 and then I contacted my victim liaison officer and then she would then update me every now and then,
but yeah.
Did you ever feel supported at all, you know, throughout the exploitation,
through the trial, afterwards?
Not really, no. No. Even now I haven't had any like professional like therapy or
counseling.
Is that something that you'd want to do? Yeah. Yeah. I've been trying to get it for a while but
so difficult.
So you've testified in court
and they're found guilty.
Yeah. How did it feel when they got found guilty? It felt good because I knew
that obviously they couldn't then do it to any more children and that nobody else would be affected by it. You must have felt very proud of yourself. You're so young, so brave.
I was a bit proud of myself but at the same time it was daunting as well because
then the reality hit of like, oh
wow, like
this is real. Yeah. Like it kinda just felt like a bit of like a story like before that if that makes sense, like it just felt like a bad dream. Yeah. And then once that it all came out it was just like oh.
There was
a serious case review
done after the convictions,
so this is in 2015
and it showed that professionals
have failed people like yourself.
How does it feel to know that these paid professionals
didn't do their jobs proper?
Yeah, that's it was it's terrible because like they could've
if they would've opened their eyes to it from the beginning,
there was probably thousands of girls that they could've saved not just
from the sexual abuse and harassment, everything else, but probably lives that's been taken too. Yeah. And they've just not really cared about it, they just shrug it off. It's just Why do you think they don't care about it?
I'm not too sure, they just they haven't really taken things as seriously as they should have been and with the convictions
and stuff like that obviously
they were convicted but
like now for instance, a lot of them have now been released from jail early
even though their sentences shouldn't have ended yet. They've now been released back into the community.
We have no restrictions against them. I haven't. They've not put bowel conditions on any of these men. They can they're still allowed to come outside of my property
and harass me. Kind of please. Do you think when people are convicted they should be an automatic ban that they can never come near you and approach you? Yeah. Kind of
automatic ban that they can never come near you and approach you? Yeah. 100%. Okay. So they're now some of them are now
out of
prison. How's that been for you? It's been scary. Yeah. It's
been a mess. That's the scariest part of it all because
when I was in, it was kind of, I was just, that was just my life, like I didn't
really know
of anything out of that at that point in time, whereas like now I have like 2 children,
I'm an adult now,
and I know how serious those crimes actually are. So it's more daunting now than it was back then if I'm being honest. Yeah.
Have you had any trouble at your home, arthritis or anything since you've been out of prison? Yeah. We've had,
some of these men come in outside of my property looking through my windows,
making threats.
We've actually had our front ring window smashed, which is it took 8 weeks to fix,
and now we are being charged
for the damage that was caused by the man who smashed it,
and the police
ain't doing anything about that either. So you've reported this to the police? Yeah. And what have they said? They just said that there wasn't enough evidence even though I have video footage
from my ring doorbell
of the man outside threatening and the window being smashed. I have everything
on record. And can you see this man? Can you see his face? Yeah. What's he look like?
It's hard to describe it. He's probably about a 6 foot. He's got a beard. He's not of English origin.
Yeah, and he comes around, he's like he's brought a child here a few times as well, like a young child, like a 2 year old Okay.
And he was, like, making the little child, like, wave as well, and to me that Wow. That kind of felt like a hint of I know you've got children now Yeah. And I'm coming after them too. I mean,
you were 11 years old when this started, it went on for several years, you've testified in court, you've put these men in prison,
the authority surely should be be protecting you and they won't even move your home. Yeah.
Yeah. What would you like to say to mister Watcher?
Sorry.
What? What would you like to say to them if they're watching? If, you know, if the police officers or if the council or politicians, if anybody's watching this.
Well, you've
failed to help me once
and you're failing again,
and
I ain't gonna let it happen this time. I've got 2 children that they don't have voices. I am their voice, and I need to protect them. Yeah. And I will go to any length I can to protect my children.
We hear lots of people saying that lessons have been learned. Clearly in your case, no lessons are being learned, are they? No.
Do you feel safe right now? No.
What do you think that should be done?
I think they need to
move me and my family and any of the witnesses or victims from these people
far away,
like to the point where we can then start whole new lives because just viewing us within the area is not good enough because
they're still around, like they moved me from Hawfield to to where I am now, which is in it is quite a distance, but it's still not far enough. They've still found me again. They're still here,
and I just feel like it's gonna constantly be a chase. Do you think you'll ever be free? No. No.
Would you like to move completely out of the area then and just Yeah. Start again? Yeah.
Why have you decided to share your story now?
I've decided to share it now because I've been trying for so long to in hopes that they would tell the truth
and the police and the media and people like that would come forward and say actually this is the severity of this gang and this is what actually happened, but they haven't. And I've been waiting so long for them to go back to trial to finish those extra years for what had happened to me other than that one night and it never did. And I just feel like they're continuing to fail,
not just me, but all the other victims and potential victims in the future by not
doing what they should be doing and putting it out there and letting everybody down. Okay.
Well, thank you for sharing your story. I appreciate it.
Thank you.