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Fiona Goddard, who endured sexual abuse as a child at a children’s home in Bradford, has spoken out after having her compensation claims rejected. At the age of 14, during the late 2000s, she was subjected to grooming and abuse by groups of men while in care. Goddard, who has chosen to waive her anonymity, described the refusal of her claims against West Yorkshire Police and Bradford Council as “really insulting,” viewing it as a further dismissal of the suffering she experienced.
The abuse she faced led to a significant legal case. In February 2019, nine men were convicted and sentenced at Bradford Crown Court for various sexual offences against her. During the trial, it emerged that police had found Goddard on multiple occasions at the home of a man in his 40s while she was missing from local authority care. Despite her mother raising concerns about child sexual exploitation in 2008, and evidence of Goddard’s contact with adult men, authorities failed to take appropriate action. A safeguarding review highlighted this lack of response from both the police and children’s social services.
The report also revealed that Goddard went missing nearly every day, but these incidents were categorized merely as “unauthorised absences” rather than “missing” episodes, resulting in a reduced level of police attention. West Yorkshire Police, in a letter to her solicitor, dismissed the negligence claims as “entirely without merit.” Responding to this, Goddard expressed frustration, stating, “Publicly to the media, they’re accepting they failed, they’re accepting that they did stuff wrong but in private they’re trying to gaslight me.” She criticized not only the police but also Bradford Council, who denied liability despite previously acknowledging significant failures and issuing apologies publicly.
Amy Clowrey, a solicitor involved in the case, remarked on the authorities’ contradictory approach. While public apologies have been made, no official admissions of responsibility have followed in private legal dealings. She noted this pattern is common in similar cases but cautioned that such handling causes further trauma for survivors. Clowrey emphasized the importance of genuine apologies to aid healing, commenting that the current legal process remains “quite adversarial” and lacks the openness and transparency survivors need. Fiona Goddard, along with other survivors, had earlier resigned from the government’s inquiry into grooming gangs, raising concerns about the appointed panel members’ backgrounds. She argued these services had “contributed most to the cover-up of the national mass rape and trafficking of children.” Former children’s commissioner, Baroness Anne Longfield, was appointed as chair of the inquiry in December
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