My daughter, 14, was raped, beaten & trafficked around UK by vile grooming gangs…her attackers are still on the streets

SCARLETT West should have had a bright future ahead of her. With a private school education and her own horse, the 13-year-old had all the trappings of a middle class upbringing. Tipped to pass her GCSEs with flying colours, she harboured dreams of joining the mounted police and would spend every night after school riding her pony Jasper and mucking out at the local stables.

But her ambitions and life were left in tatters when she fell victim to grooming gangs who plied her with booze and drugs before trafficking her around the country where she was beaten, raped and sexually assaulted. Scarlett's story demonstrates how working class white girls were not the only young women to fall victim to Pakistani-Muslim gangs.

Today, her dad Marlon tells how Scarlett was trafficked to Rochdale just over two years ago - proof that the gangs continue to hold an iron grip over the northern town at the heart of the scandal. She was trafficked 13 miles to Rochdale in October 2022 - three years after first being groomed aged 14 - where cops found her in an Airbnb with two Asian men as part of a drugs bust.

Incredibly, Scarlett was charged with intent to supply drugs despite being on a national referral mechanism scheme - a programme designed to identify trafficking victims. It was more than two weeks before the case against her was dropped. The Sun reveals Scarlett’s torment as the row over a national inquiry into Britain’s grooming gangs rumbles on.

It’s been 18 years since the first stories appeared about groups of men using and abusing mostly vulnerable teenage girls from working class backgrounds. Dad Marlon West, 51, said: “Nothing has changed in the way these girls are treated for decades.

“It’s worse than ever because the gangs know there’s no comeback on it. Not one of Scarlett’s groomers has ever been prosecuted. “ It’s more than street grooming - it’s organised crime, getting the girls to run county lines as well. “These kids aren’t going to Brownies and being groomed there. They’re being picked off the street and from outside their schools, and it’s still going on today, but the girls and their families are terrified to speak out.”.

There’s little wonder since Marlon and Scarlett, who has waived her right to anonymity, have been persistently threatened. A year before she was trafficked to Rochdale from her home near Hyde, Manchester, an associate of the gangs threatened to kill her dad - and sent Scarlett a chilling video featuring a gun and ammunition.

Weeks earlier, a balaclava-clad man was captured on CCTV delivering a menacing letter to Marlon’s house calling Scarlett a s**g. Marlon, a psychiatric nurse, claims police and social work did little to protect his daughter - branding him a menace because he repeatedly reported her missing.

Scarlett, 20, who is too traumatised to talk to us herself but is happy for her dad to tell the story, today lives in fear of her attackers and is trying desperately to claw back the childhood stolen from her by sitting GSCEs she never got to take. Marlon said: “It wrecked her childhood, and it’s destroyed me, thinking about what she went through.

“It’s only now, with maturity, she looks back and realises what was actually going on. She’s been raped that many times that it became normal for her. “She has her own place but will often call me at three or four am after having nightmares about what happened to her.”.

At his home in Hyde, Manchester, Marlon looks through family pictures of the little girl he brought up alone from the age of seven after his marriage broke down. It’s worse than ever because the gangs know there’s no comeback on it. Not one of Scarlett’s groomers has ever been prosecuted.

Images show an angelic looking toddler with blue eyes and gentle waves in her hair, before Scarlett blossoms into a pretty, fresh-faced teen. Her ordeal began shortly before her 14th birthday when she was beaten up by a gang in October 2018. Frightened, Marlon says she was an easy target for a groomer, an older woman who had a drug addiction.

Marlon says Scarlett, who went to a private prep school and rode her horse Jasper straight after lessons each day, started staying out late at night. Marlon said: “Scarlett’s behaviour changed pretty rapidly. “I started getting calls from the stables saying Jasper hadn't been fed or cleaned out, yet she was regularly breaking her 8pm curfew.

“Then her attitude at school changed too. She was answering back teachers and, as I later found out, playing truant.”. It wrecked her childhood, and it’s destroyed me, thinking about what she went through. After repeatedly challenging Scarlett about her behaviour, she began going missing, at first overnight, then weekends, then for two weeks at a time, often staying with the woman she had befriended.

Marlon says he suspected his daughter was being groomed but claims the notion was dismissed out of hand at a meeting with Tameside social services. He said: “The first couple of times Scarlett disappeared the police took it seriously but when it became more frequent they didn’t seem to care.”.