A survivor of a notorious Pakistani grooming gang has broken her silence to describe how she was trafficked from the north of England to Scotland as a teenager and systematically raped by multiple men.
Fiona Goddard, who successfully secured convictions against the West Yorkshire gang that abused her from the age of 13, has labelled First Minister John Swinney's refusal to fully accept that grooming gangs operate in Scotland as 'insane'.
A Nationwide Network of Abuse
Fiona, now 32 and from Bradford, was targeted by groomers while living in a children's home. Her ordeal began at the age of 13, when a group of Pakistani men plied her with alcohol and drugs before sexually assaulting and raping her.
In 2010, at the age of 16, her abusers escalated their criminal enterprise. They forced her to travel by taxi to Scotland, using her as a drug mule to transport shipments of cocaine. Fiona explained she was 'desensitised' to the criminality and terrified the men would kill her if she refused, as they had shown her violent videos and physically beaten her.
She was trafficked to Glasgow and Edinburgh on multiple occasions, at least four times to Glasgow alone, though the exact number is blurred by trauma and the substances she was forced to take.
The Scottish Safe Houses
Fiona provided chilling details of a terraced house in Glasgow, transformed into a house of multiple occupancy, which served as a hub for the gang's activities.
'There were other men in there, and there were already loads of girls there when I got there,' she recalled. 'The girls were from Glasgow.'
She witnessed these Scottish girls being sent out to deliver drugs and then return to the property, where they would be given drink and drugs before being sexually abused by the men present. Fiona confirmed she was not the only English girl being brought to Scotland and that she faced similar abuse in Edinburgh.
A Call for Justice and a Scottish Inquiry
Despite her social work case notes and video evidence to West Yorkshire police in 2014 explicitly detailing her trafficking to Scotland, Fiona has never been contacted by Police Scotland about her case.
Her perseverance led to a trial in 2019, where nine of her abusers were convicted and sentenced to a total of 132 years in prison. She has since campaigned for authorities to take the issue of grooming gangs seriously across the UK.
Fiona recently resigned from the Prime Minister's national grooming gang inquiry, citing political interference, but remains hopeful for progress. Her account comes as a Scottish woman who was groomed in Glasgow has also written to John Swinney urging an inquiry.
Labour MP Joani Reid has backed these calls, stating: 'We do have a problem of serious organised child sexual abuse in Scotland, and we have a political establishment that is wilfully blind to it.'
Fiona's powerful final message to the Scottish Government is a plea for logic and action: 'This is widespread right across the UK, and on a mass scale. The idea that he thinks this stopped at the border is insane in itself.'
