Violet, a 25-year-old from London, grew up in a loving, middle-class home, yet she was groomed and sexually exploited as a teenager. Her story is featured in the BBC documentary Britain's Forgotten Girls, which investigates how children across the UK are groomed, trafficked and sexually exploited by organised drug gangs.
Violet describes her childhood as happy and privileged. 'I was very lucky and privileged. I was loved,' she tells Metro. 'I came from a nice family home. My mum and stepdad were in good careers. We had a good life. I didn't struggle growing up.'
However, as she approached adolescence, feelings of isolation and awkwardness surfaced. Battling with her mental health, Violet sought solace in drink and drugs. 'Mum and my teachers struggled to manage me. I was very badly behaved at school, I was put under the mental health team, there was a lot going on,' she explains. 'People would call me "out of control" and "devil child". I started to feel very isolated.'
Online Vulnerability and First Contact
At secondary school, Violet found it hard to cope with newfound freedom. 'I had a phone and was online. But I was also really vulnerable, because I felt a lot older than I actually was.' She created a Facebook account at 12 and posted pictures of herself. 'I put a bit of makeup on and I got 100 likes and loads of people – both friends and strangers – told me how beautiful I was. It was a rush.'
When she was 13, an older man got in touch on BlackBerry Messenger. 'It was just small talk, no different from how I would talk to other boys at the time. The conversations were quite innocent – just meaningless chat. There was nothing that screamed red flag,' she remembers.
When the man asked her to visit him one night, Violet went with a friend. At the address – 'a really disgusting building' – the man was waiting with other men. Her friend left immediately. 'They had promised me a taxi home, but it was the early hours so I thought it made sense to wait for the cab,' remembers Violet.
The Assault and Aftermath
Violet was surrounded by men and raped. 'I remember how much fear I felt within that moment when I was being touched without consent. My body went into shutdown,' she says. 'People think that rape and abuse always needs to be this violent thing, but one of the ways people control you is by making you feel you are in control.'
After the assault, Violet messaged the man, who apologised and said he would come to see her. The next day, a different man was waiting in a car. 'It felt like there was no way I could say no. I didn't feel like I had any other option,' she remembers. She endured another assault.
Her parents had reported her missing. When she returned home, she took a knife from a drawer. 'I was in a dissociative state. I went to a drawer and took a knife out. I don't think I wanted to kill myself. I was just feeling like I was out of control.'
Police examination found multiple men's DNA inside her body. 'I didn't even know any of their names,' she says. Violet was told the perpetrators would be prosecuted for drugs offences rather than rape.
Life in Care and Recovery
Violet was taken into care against her and her parents' wishes. She spent her teens moving between homes across the country. 'I had gone from a middle-class home with a good education, lots of love and care, to going into institutions. The contrast was crazy,' she tells Metro. Men continued to groom and abuse her while in care.
Now 25, Violet is in 12-step recovery and has been sober for more than two years. She credits her family for fighting her corner non-stop. 'If I didn't have the family I did, I would be in a very different situation now,' she says. She now works in reproductive health and is in a stable relationship.
Violet shares her story to urge authorities to do more to protect children and improve sex education in primary schools. 'It's ridiculous to think that conversations about sexual exploitation aren't happening in schools,' she says. 'I want people to understand that sexual exploitation comes in many different forms. Anybody can be exploited. It is not limited to class, gender, ethnicity or religion.'
Britain's Forgotten Girls is available on iPlayer or BBC Two from 9pm.
