“IT’S a drama – but it represented all our truths.”

That was the message from Sara Rowbotham, the whistleblower at the centre of the Rochdale grooming scandal, during a key note speech at a Bradford conference on child sexual exploitation (CSE). 

She was referring to the harrowing TV drama Three Girls, in which she was portrayed by Maxine Peake, and shared her story at today's Yorkshire CSE Conference. 

The day, held at Bradford Academy, was organised by the BLAST project, a local charity which tackles the grooming of boys. 

Ms Rowbotham was working for the NHS in Rochdale when she started to identify young people who were involved in, or vulnerable to sexual exploitation. For the next eight years she tried to bring the issue to the attention of services with little or no meaningful response.

In 2012 she was forced to ‘whistleblow’, seeking support from her local MP and eventually being called to give evidence to the Home Office Select Committee inquiry into CSE.

Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus, she said while things had shifted and changed, there were still some gaps in provision and some authorities which could not afford the resources.

“My thing is – if it isn’t happening in your city then you are not looking hard enough,” said Ms Rowbotham. “My worry is whilst everyone in the country is busy now looking at CSE, we might miss something else.

“The biggest thing that now I can feel confident about is that nobody will ever be able to say ‘this was a lifestyle choice’. 

“We now know that children who have been raped and abused by multiple people, that is not something they are choosing.”

She added that the victims – and perpetrators – were of various ethnicities and it was not just girls who were abused. 

She said: “What needs to actually happen is to look at the motivation of those criminals. Rather than something to do with their ethnicity or background, it was about the motivation and how they managed to do it, how they got away with it.”

And while Ms Rowbotham said people believing her “bears little comparison” to people believing victims, she felt a huge sense of relief and sense that justice would be done. 

Other speakers at the event included Madeleine Black, an abuse survivor and founder of The Forgiveness Project, and Dr Helen Beckett, director of The International Centre: Researching child sexual exploitation, violence and trafficking, at the University of Bedfordshire.

A number of workshops were also held at the event, which attracts visitors from Yorkshire councils, schools and charities.

Phil Mitchell, project coordinatorat BLAST, said the day had gone well and there had been some good feedback. 

He said conferences such as this one were important to keep on learning about CSE and to increase awareness.