Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / The UK Inquiry Into Grooming Gangs: Chloe Tells Her Story (6/21/26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program. In
- 0:04this episode, we're going to hear some explicit testimony from
- 0:08one of the alleged victims of the grooming gangs. So
- 0:12just want to give you guys a heads up that
- 0:14it is pretty uncomfortable victim testimony. There are thousands of
- 0:21survivors who could have provided evidence to our inquiry team.
- 0:24Below is the summary as some of the testimony provided
- 0:27by her brave witnesses who spoke at the inquiry hearings.
- 0:30Some of the witnesses have to remain anonymous for their
- 0:33own safety. Where have we heard that before? Chloe? Throughout
- 0:39her childhood years, Chloe was popular at school before I'm
- 0:42well academically and enjoyed an active social life. Although her
- 0:47parents separated when she was young, she describes her early
- 0:50upbringing as relatively stable. Following the separation, full custody of
- 0:54Chloe and her older brother was awarded to their father,
- 0:58despite his alcoholism. Her mother, on the other hand, was
- 1:01often absent from her life and became homeless following the separation.
- 1:06Chloe recalls a generally secure and supportive home environment under
- 1:10the care of her father. However, following his sudden death.
- 1:14Just before her tenth birthday, she moved in with her
- 1:17mother and her mother's new husband, a man she describes
- 1:20as a pedophile by whom she was sexually abused. Chloe's
- 1:25mother caught her husband assaulting Chloe on many occasions, but
- 1:29did little to stop it. On one occasion, Chloe's mother
- 1:33caught her husband in the shower with Chloe, and instead
- 1:36of intervening, she closed the door and walked out. At
- 1:40this time, Chloe was ten years old. The abuse soon
- 1:44escalated to rape. Chloe's stepfather supplied her with alcohol and
- 1:48cigarettes to keep her quiet, and she began smoking cannabis.
- 1:52Around the same time, Chloe started true wanting and spending
- 1:57time in the local town center with a friend. On
- 2:01she described groups of Muslim men, primarily Pakistanis, aged twenty
- 2:05to over fifty, showing them attention, including wolf whistling and
- 2:10buying them alcohol. Many were taxi drivers who would take
- 2:13the girls into their cars and drive them around the town.
- 2:18At this stage, there was no sexual abuse, and although
- 2:20the men's behavior was clearly inappropriate, Chloe and her friend,
- 2:24then in their final year of primary school, enjoyed being
- 2:27treated like adults. The grooming soon intensified. The provision of
- 2:32alcohol and takeaway was accompanied by emotional manipulation with the men,
- 2:37many of whom were related to one another, presenting themselves
- 2:41as sympathetic friends to Chloe. Chloe describes this process as
- 2:45them mapping out are you a vulnerable person? Physical contact,
- 2:50including kisses and massages, became increasingly common. Meanwhile, the abuse
- 2:55by her stepfather at home worsened, and her mother was
- 2:59all but absent as a guardian. At this time. Chloe
- 3:04had a nat and an uncle who lived nearby, and
- 3:06she often sought refuge with them. She had spent holidays
- 3:10with them during her earlier childhood and felt that she
- 3:13could trust them. On one occasion, she had visited them
- 3:16while true wanting before returning home and spending the day
- 3:20there while her mother and stepfather were at work. To
- 3:23chloe surprise, her uncle arrived at the house unannounced an
- 3:26hour later and invited him inside. After a brief conversation,
- 3:31Chloe's uncle sexually assaulted her. Chloe resisted and he relented
- 3:36and left. She told her mother about the assault, and
- 3:39her mother reported it to the police. The police accused
- 3:43Chloe of lying, and no further action was taken. Until
- 3:47this incident, she had regarded her uncle as one of
- 3:49the best people in her life. Afterwards, there were no
- 3:52adults left that Chloe could confide in or seek support from.
- 3:58Increasingly isolated, she became more deeply involved with the groups
- 4:01of Muslim men she encountered in the town center. One evening,
- 4:06Chloe's friends suggested that they travel to a nearby town
- 4:09where one of the men had a hotel room. They
- 4:11were picked up by the men, who were drunk and
- 4:14under the influence of drugs, and taken to the hotel.
- 4:17When they arrived, hotel staff saw them but did not intervene.
- 4:21In the room, the girls were given a potent strand
- 4:23of cannabis, which left Chloe, then eleven, absolutely smashed. Chloe's
- 4:28friend was taken into another room by a group of men,
- 4:31and Chloe was groped by the man who remained. Chloe
- 4:35resisted and he hit her. The man did not attempt
- 4:38to sexually assault her again, and instead through the girls,
- 4:41both of whom were still intoxicated, out of the hotel,
- 4:45and refused to drive them back to their hometown. They
- 4:47were forced to walk. It was around midnight. Chloe didn't
- 4:50want to go back to her home, and she feared
- 4:52her mother would beat her for being out late, so
- 4:55she stayed with her friend. In the early hours of
- 4:58the morning, Chloe was collected from her her friend's house
- 5:00by the police after her mother reported her missing. Chloe
- 5:04by to the police and her mother about where she
- 5:07had been. Chloe's mother grounded her for a month, meaning
- 5:11that she was stuck at home with her predatory stepfather,
- 5:14a period she describes as torture. After the month passed,
- 5:19Chloe arranged to see her friend, who boasted that she
- 5:21had a new boyfriend. Chloe left the house to meet her,
- 5:24and the girls were picked up by the boyfriend, who
- 5:27was in fact a twenty five year old Indian man. Initially,
- 5:32Chloe thought the man was nice, posher than the other
- 5:35men she had met in the town center. He took
- 5:37Chloe and her friend to a shop where he purchased
- 5:40the bottle of vodka before picking up one of his
- 5:43friends and taking the girls to a secluded location. During
- 5:47the journey, the men began pressuring the girls for sex.
- 5:50Chloe refused, stating that she was on her period, but
- 5:53the men replied that it did not matter. Night was
- 5:56falling when they arrived and the boyfriend took Chloe's friend
- 6:00out of the car, leaving Chloe alone with the other man.
- 6:04He proceeded to raper on the back seat. The incident
- 6:08took place in two thousand and three. In twenty twenty two,
- 6:11Chloe took the two men to court, but neither were
- 6:14found guilty. From this moment, Chloe's life spiraled. At twelve
- 6:19years old, she began drinking heavily, smoking large amounts of cannabis,
- 6:23and taking harder drugs, including ecstasy, anything to block it
- 6:27out of her mind. She would drink before school just
- 6:30to get through the day, and her attendants dropped significantly.
- 6:34She and her friend would spend school hours in the
- 6:37town center, walking around until somebody picked them up in
- 6:40a car, somebody about them alcohol, or somebody gave them drugs.
- 6:44There were times when Chloe would be missing for up
- 6:47to three days, during which time she was passed between taxis, drugged, abused,
- 6:52and raped. In every case, the perpetrators were Muslim and
- 6:57primarily Pakistani. On one occasion, Chloe was abducted by an
- 7:02abuser who was driving drunk and taken to a graveyard.
- 7:06He gave Chloe still twelve years old whiskey before forcing
- 7:10himself on her and raping her. He withdrew before ejaculation
- 7:15and forced the empty whiskey bottle into Chloe's vagina, where
- 7:18it shattered. Chloe admitted herself to A and E, but
- 7:22no questions were asked about how she had sustained such
- 7:25an injury. She was examined, the glass was removed, she
- 7:29was discharged. Chloe was questioned by the police due to
- 7:33her absence on a number of occasions. Each time she
- 7:37was asked where she had been, who she had been with,
- 7:39and what she was doing, she replied that she had
- 7:43been having sex with adult males in cars. Rather than
- 7:47opening an investigation and pursuing her abusers, the police dismissed
- 7:51Chloe as a prostitute. They asked her whether she was
- 7:55consenting to the sexual activity, and despite Chloe telling them
- 7:58that she did not know the definition of word consent,
- 8:01they reported that she had. The police found Chloe, as
- 8:05well as other missing girls, in cars with the gang
- 8:07members on multiple occasions, but let the gang members go
- 8:11without so much as questioning them. On one occasion, Chloe
- 8:16was in the town center and was identified as a
- 8:18missing child by a police officer who questioned where she
- 8:21had been. Chloe told the police officer about the full
- 8:25extent of her abuse, and the response of the police
- 8:28officer was nothing could be done. Chloe was let go
- 8:32in response to her truancy and deteriorating behavior. The school
- 8:37regularly plays Chloe in isolation and compelled her to attend
- 8:40additional after school classes every day. This did little to
- 8:45improve her emotional state, and she continued to spend time
- 8:49with her friend and her friend's boyfriend. This went on
- 8:52for a number of years. The boyfriend would supply the
- 8:55girls with alcohol and drugs, as well as introducing them
- 8:58to his friends, who were exclusively South Asian men. On
- 9:02one occasion, he took the girls to his place of work,
- 9:05a textile factory, worry rate Chloe. Following this incident, Chloe
- 9:10stopped spending time with a friend who up until this
- 9:12point had accompanied her throughout exploitation. By this time, Chloe
- 9:18had become so accustomed to her lifestyle of spending time
- 9:22with the Muslim gangs that she continued to do so
- 9:24without her friend. On one occasion, following another late return home,
- 9:29her mother grounded her for two months. Fearing further abuse
- 9:32from her stepfather. Chloe walked to a nearby social service
- 9:35office while her mother was at work and reported him.
- 9:40Chloe was interviewed by the social worker about the abuse,
- 9:43after which her mother and stepfather were arrested and questioned.
- 9:47Both denied that the abuse was taking place, and they
- 9:50were released without charge. Chloe made further appeals to social
- 9:54services and was eventually removed from the house and placed
- 9:57in foster care. The couple who cared for several other
- 10:01foster children, though she found them snobby and judgmental, found
- 10:06some semblance of stability with them, but it did not
- 10:08last long. She was still living in the same town,
- 10:13so she went into the town center, as she often
- 10:15did both alone and with foster cares. The Muslim gangs
- 10:19would recognize and target her. She remained at the same school,
- 10:23and because she now lived further away, the foster carers
- 10:26paid for taxis to take her there. She would ask
- 10:29the taxi drivers to drop her near the school and,
- 10:32rather than attending, would walk to one of the neighborhoods
- 10:35where the Muslim gangs spent their time. The gangs would
- 10:38take her into their taxis, ply her with drugs and alcohol,
- 10:41and sexually abuse her. Around the age of thirteen, Chloe
- 10:45disclosed the social services that she was being sexually abused
- 10:48by gangs of Muslim men. In response, social services did
- 10:52not intervene, but rather talk to Chloe about contraception and
- 10:56sexual health. One social worker started regularly taking Chloe to
- 11:01sexual health clinic, where she was diagnosed with chlamydia in
- 11:04her throat and vagina, connerrhea, general awartz, and pelvic inflammatory disease.
- 11:10Neither the social workers nor the clinic staff questioned or
- 11:13reported this. The police were aware of Chloe's activities, but
- 11:18instead of targeting those responsible for her abuse, they routinely
- 11:22failed to question them, let alone pursue further action. Then
- 11:26Chloe was found in cars and houses with them. Chloe
- 11:30was soon moved to a different foster placement with a
- 11:32far more protective carer. On one occasion, a gang came
- 11:36to the foster home searching for Chloe, and the care
- 11:38of fought them in the street to protect her. Around
- 11:41the time Chloe turned fourteen, a social worker approached her
- 11:45about the ongoing sexual exploitation. This was one of the
- 11:48first times this had happened, and Chloe was relieved that
- 11:51her abuse was finally being addressed. However, rather than offering
- 11:55a solution, the social worker instead told Chloe that the
- 11:59producers of Emmerdale were looking for a young actress to
- 12:02play a victim of child sexual exploitation and asked whether
- 12:06she would be interested in auditioning for the role given
- 12:09her experience. Following this exchange, Chloe, upset, angry and in
- 12:14a state of disbelief, ran away from the Foster home
- 12:18after being abducted by a Muslim gang. Was missing for
- 12:21six months. Over this period, she was trafficked across the
- 12:25length and breadth of Britain. She was taken to house
- 12:28after house and raped and abused by guy after guy
- 12:31after guy. The men who abused her paid money to
- 12:33the gang, which treated her as little more than a commodity.
- 12:37She was reported missing and her photograph was shown on TV.
- 12:41Her abusers remarked on this you're that girl off TV
- 12:44that's missing, but her whereabouts were never reported to the police.
- 12:49Chloe describes a cycle of grooming, rape, and drug and
- 12:52alcohol abuse that went on until eventually she was located
- 12:55by the police. When the police found her, she was
- 12:58in a car with the South Asia Muslim men. The
- 13:01man was let go without charge, and she was returned
- 13:04to her mother's house. Chloe's relationship with her mother had
- 13:08completely broken down by this point, so she continued to
- 13:11run away and her psychological state deteriorated further. Following another
- 13:16period of grooming and sexual exploitation by a Muslim gang,
- 13:20Chloe was taken into police custody and transported to a
- 13:23secure unit at a children's home. She describes the home
- 13:27as being like prison. Every aspect of her life was
- 13:30controlled and surveiled, and she was routinely subjected to bodily examinations,
- 13:35including full cavity searches. Chloe found the experience highly traumatic.
- 13:41She remained there for nine months, by which time she
- 13:44was almost fifteen. Social services determined that she was well
- 13:48enough to be released, and she was placed in foster care,
- 13:51not far from where she had been living before. Chloe
- 13:55describes the new carers as a positive and encouraging presence
- 13:58in her life, and in spite of her proximity to
- 14:00the sites of her abuse and exploitation, Chloe found stability
- 14:04and security living with them. She enrolled in full time
- 14:08hairdressing and beauty course at a nearby college, and for
- 14:11the next two years. Chloe describes her life as fantastic.
- 14:16As Chloe approached her eighteenth birthday, social services notified her
- 14:20that the foster care would end soon. They identified a
- 14:24house for her after parting ways with her carer. She
- 14:27moved in and got a retail job to support herself.
- 14:30Despite having little experience taking care of herself, Chloe's life
- 14:34remained generally stable through this period. Eventually, Chloe re established
- 14:38contact with a friend whom she had been abused with
- 14:41as a young child. She invited her over to her house,
- 14:44and when she arrived, she was accompanied by a group
- 14:47of Muslim men, all of whom remembered Chloe from her
- 14:50past abuse. Immediately, Chloe's life was thrown back into chaos.
- 14:55The men refused to leave, and, in Chloe's words, it
- 14:58was no longer in my quiet little house. It was
- 15:00their house. They smashed windows, kicked indoors, left the house
- 15:04an absolute wreck, and sexually abused Chloe. One of the men,
- 15:08a previous abuser, pinned her down, pulled his trousers down,
- 15:11and sat on her face orly raping her on her
- 15:14own sofa as the rest of the gang watched. Chloe
- 15:18returned to drugs and alcohol the coat. Though she was
- 15:22still working in retail, her ability to work was rapidly declining.
- 15:26During one shift, one of her colleagues, someone she was
- 15:29friends with, jokingly pinched her bottom. Chloe, traumatized by years
- 15:33of abuse, punched him in the face in the middle
- 15:35of the shop. She was brought before management and tried
- 15:39to argue her case, but she was fired. Left with
- 15:42no income, Chloe's life spiraled further. The Muslim gang was
- 15:46still occupying her house, and with nowhere else to go
- 15:49and no ability to remove them, she remained there with them.
- 15:53They routinely drugged and abused and raped her, including with
- 15:56objects including soft drink cans, keys, and a baseball bat.
- 16:00Before long, they started to pay her bills to consolidate
- 16:03their presence in her home. On a number of occasions,
- 16:07they brought young girls into the house to abuse them.
- 16:10Chloe recalls a number of occasions when boys under the
- 16:13age of eighteen from the Muslim community were pressured and
- 16:16bullied by their older friends and relatives into raping her.
- 16:19Chloe was forced to commit crimes, including insurance fraud and
- 16:23the holding of drugs. On one occasion, she contacted police
- 16:27to report an assault that was taking place in her house,
- 16:30and when they arrived, Chloe was threatened with arrest rather
- 16:33than the gang members, as the property was registered in
- 16:36her name. One evening, an associate of the gang from
- 16:39a neighboring town arrived at the house. A notorious sex trafficker,
- 16:43he soon began taking Chloe to bars and nightclubs in
- 16:46the surrounding area. There, he would spike her with heroine
- 16:49before handing her over to men who sexually assaulted and
- 16:52raped her. Chloe became addicted to opiates and her health
- 16:56deteriorated rapidly. She became anorexic when just five stone at
- 17:01the age of eighteen. The use of heroine was a
- 17:03method of control by the gang, as it left her
- 17:06with no ability to defend herself physically. Her daily existence
- 17:10became a relentless cycle of rape, exploitation, and violence. Eventually,
- 17:16a social worker visited Chloe and was shocked by both
- 17:19her appearance and the conditions in which he was living.
- 17:23Concerned for her welfare, she took Chloe to an addiction clinic,
- 17:26where test revealed an extremely high concentration of opiates in
- 17:29her system. Chloe was prescribed medication to manage her opioid
- 17:34dependency and gradually weaned herself off the drugs. Around this time,
- 17:39Chloe reconnected with a childhood friend, and their friendship soon
- 17:42developed into a romantic relationship. Her boyfriend became aware of
- 17:47the ongoing abuse and, with the help of his father,
- 17:50paid off Chloe's remaining rent and moved her out of
- 17:53her squalid house. Chloe moved in with him after she
- 17:56got another job in retail. For a short period, chloe
- 18:00life was relatively stable, but due to her unresolved trauma,
- 18:05she soon returned to drinking heavily, smoking cannabis, and gabbling.
- 18:10Her workplace was close to her first foster home, and
- 18:13before long she became into contact with members of the
- 18:15gang that had abused her. At the time, the cycle
- 18:18of grooming, exploitation, and abuse had resumed. Her relationship with
- 18:23her boyfriend broke down, and out of desperation, she reestablished
- 18:27contact with her mother, who had left her predatory husband,
- 18:30and soon moved back in with her. One night, Chloe
- 18:34was out with members of the gang and drinking heavily.
- 18:37Upon her return to her mother's house, her mother reported
- 18:40her to the police. The police arrested Chloe while she
- 18:43was changing into her pajamas, and she was taken to
- 18:45the police station, half drunk and half naked. She was
- 18:49kept in a cell until two am the following morning,
- 18:52at which point she was released. They did not provide
- 18:54her with any clothes or transportation back to her mother's house.
- 18:58She tried to connect with her ex boyfriend, but he
- 19:00did not respond. Chloe, then nineteen, was left stranded. She
- 19:05wandered around the neighborhood for several hours before encountering a
- 19:08gang member who had previously abused her. Cold and desperate,
- 19:12she got in his car and for the following weeks,
- 19:14was trafficked across the country. Eventually, Chloe identified a new
- 19:19house to move into. Despite their dysfunctional relationship, her mother
- 19:22agreed to sign the rental agreement as Chloe's guaranteur, as Chloe,
- 19:27then without income, knew she would not be able to
- 19:29afford the rent. After she moved in, she became aware
- 19:32of the fact that she was the only white British
- 19:35person in her neighborhood. Every other resident was South Asian.
- 19:39As a result, the gangs discovered where she was living
- 19:42and once again treated her house as if it was
- 19:44their own. The cycle of abuse continued, and Chloe's emotional
- 19:48state deteriorated significantly. Chloe was taken to the hospital after
- 19:53a suicide attempt, and while there she discovered she was pregnant.
- 19:57The father of the child, the Pakistani Muslim, a legal immigrant,
- 20:01moved into Chloe's home. Chloe was subsequently coerced into converting
- 20:05to Islam and forced into marriage, both to legitimize the
- 20:09pregnancy in the eyes of her abuser and to assist
- 20:12him and securing a visa. Chloe's behavior became tightly controlled.
- 20:17She was forced to wear a job, she was prohibited
- 20:20from looking out the windows of her home, and if
- 20:23she misbehaved in the eyes of her husband, he would
- 20:25beat her black and blue, something that happened every day.
- 20:30Chloe's child was born with multiple health problems, including a
- 20:33defective kidney, due to the deteriorated condition of Chloe's womb
- 20:36as a result of the sexual abuse. Nevertheless, becoming a
- 20:40mother gave Chloe a renewed determination to get her life
- 20:43back on track. She reported the father of her child
- 20:47to the police after he assaulted the child, and he
- 20:49was removed from the property. She stopped taking drugs. She
- 20:53was focused and for the first time the gangs left
- 20:55her alone. One evening, she went out with a friend
- 20:58who lived across the road. Chloe, now a mother, did
- 21:01not drink heavily, but her friend became heavily intoxicated. A
- 21:05group of Asian men started speaking to them and offered
- 21:08to take Chloe and her friend home. Chloe was suspicious
- 21:11of them, but for the sake of her friend, agreed.
- 21:14Instead of taking them home, however, they were taken to
- 21:17a hotel. Chloe, who was not drunk, protested and encouraged
- 21:21her friend, who was paralytic, to leave with her. Chloe
- 21:25warned her friend about what she suspected was going to happen,
- 21:27but her friend refused to leave. Chloe, thinking of her daughter,
- 21:32seeking to protect herself, reluctantly left without her. The following day,
- 21:37Chloe's friend told Chloe that she had been raped by
- 21:40the men. The incident represented a turning point in Chloe's life.
- 21:44She decided that she needed to leave her home for
- 21:47good and get as far away from these Asian men
- 21:49as possible. By chance, she reconnected on Facebook with the
- 21:54man she had known in her early childhood, an old
- 21:57colleague of her mother, who she describes as one of
- 21:59the only adult men in my life who never harmed
- 22:02me or treated me badly. She told him about everything
- 22:05that she'd been through and her desire to leave. He
- 22:08lived in Scotland and she was invited to visit him
- 22:11for the weekend, which she did. After returning home, she
- 22:15sought support from the Women's Aid, who managed to secure
- 22:19a property in Scotland. With nothing but her daughter in
- 22:22a small bag, she left her hometown, leaving a lifetime
- 22:25of abuse and exploitation behind, and moved to Scotland, where
- 22:29she resides to this day. Chloe personally knows at least
- 22:33twenty other girls from her area who were preyed on
- 22:36by the Muslim gangs who abused her. The pattern was
- 22:39always the same, grooming, drugging, trafficking, abuse and rape. Furthermore,
- 22:43Chloe describes being taken into mosques where a mom's would
- 22:47describe non Muslims as infidels and preach that white women
- 22:50who dressed inappropriately were free game. Chloe believes that the
- 22:55local police, social services NHS and government were fully aware
- 23:00of what was happening, including the racialized nature of the crimes,
- 23:03but they did not intervene for two reasons because they
- 23:07cannot be bothered with the paperwork, and because they didn't
- 23:11want to be seen as racist. Chloe blames these bodies
- 23:14and their major push for diversity for her abuse. Chloe says,
- 23:19if I can save just one child, girl or boy
- 23:22from going through any of this, then I've done my job.
- 23:25All right, folks, We're gonna wrap up right here, and
- 23:27in the next episode, we're gonna pick up where we
- 23:30left off. And that's what the testimony of Fiona. All
- 23:34the information that goes with this episode can be found
- 23:37in the description box.