SEXUAL exploitation of vulnerable young girls has plagued northern towns, with a number of abuse rings uncovered over the past decade. Bolton Lads and Girls Club leaders believe that their early response helped to prevent large-scale abuse seen in places such as Rochdale and Rotherham.

HELENA VESTY reports.

IN the late 1990s, before its nationwide success, a floundering Lads and Girls Club was attempting to get the young people of Breightmet off the streets and into a safe place.

While organisers were debating exactly what the struggling club could do to engage the borough’s young people, they were warned about a troubling trend in the region, says the club’s former chief executive Jerry Glover.

In meetings with Bolton Council, the Lads and Girls Club team were told to focus on saving young girls from falling into sexual exploitation, known to be a problem in northern towns.

Mr Glover said that the council and social services advised that any work with young people should include special measures to combat abuse of girls, “particularly young girls in care”.

Since then, the extent of horrific child sex abuse in the region has started to be uncovered. In 2012, the public learned of the grooming gangs which had been active for years in Rochdale.

Centred around taxi firms and takeaways in Heywood, groups of men targeted working-class, white girls as young as 13, plying them with alcohol and repeatedly sexually abusing them.

When authorities finally recognised the abuse, which started in 2008, nine men were found guilty of child sex charges in 2012.

In 2015, the Greater Manchester Police issued an apology for the lack of action to address concerns in 2008 to 2010, as patterns of abuse were ignored.

Speaking at a business event last month, Mr Glover said: “I like to think that Bolton Lads and Girls Club’s work helped to stop girls falling into sexual exploitation and to prevent what we’ve seen happen in Rochdale from happening in Bolton.”

To provide a contact for young people in need, the Lads and Girls Club began a mentoring programme in 1997.

A one-to-one system, the mentoring scheme would set up a young person, in trouble or at risk, with a volunteer adult. In regular meetings, the young person would be free talk freely and use their mentor as a source of steady support for as long as two years.

Mr Glover said: “The mentoring scheme was set up to try and help an increasing number of young people with complicated lives.

“We had kids in the club who needed a stable adult in their lives, someone to talk to.”

Once the mentoring project was shown to work, getting children back to school and aiding their mental health, the system was applied to certain problems including that of sexual exploitation.

Mr Glover said: “We found that the model actually lent itself to having different arms that worked with specific kids with certain issues, for example sexual exploitation. We ran it in the same way and gave the volunteers specific training, such as what it was like to live in care or on the edge of homelessness.

“We worked with girls at risk of sexual exploitation to help them change tack and get them going down a different path.

“Maybe we were a small contribution that made the difference to prevent sexual exploitation.

The club’s mentoring scheme continues today. In Bolton, child sexual exploitation (known as CSE) is tackled by a range of initiatives, put into place by Bolton Council.

A spokesperson for Bolton Council said: “Bolton has developed a multi-agency team that works with a range of partners to prevent and address child sexual exploitation.

“Similar teams were set up across Greater Manchester in response to events in Rochdale.

“In Bolton, the Phoenix EXIT team includes police officers, children’s services and health workers.

“The team supports victims as well as providing early intervention to prevent CSE and disrupt offenders.

“Voluntary organisations across Bolton also work with the team to highlight any concerns.

“Anyone concerned that a young person is at risk of exploitation should contact the multi-agency Screening and Safeguarding Service team on 01204 331 500.”

Last year, the Bolton Safeguarding Children Board began a new two-year strategy to combat sexual abuse.

The plans read: “It is an area of child safeguarding that has received a higher profile in the last few years following a number of significant criminal investigations, learning reviews and targeted inspection.”

The board aims to reduce likelihood of children becoming victims, take action to safeguard children at risk, and to target, disrupt and prosecute the perpetrators. The report also points toward modern trends which the safeguarding teams are looking out for, including the risks of exploitation starting with online activity.

It says: “Perpetrators and victims of CSE come from all age ranges and ethnic groups. Most sexually-exploited children live at home and increasingly the abuse emerges from online grooming, before moving on to contact.”

Bolton Lads and Girls Club is always looking for new volunteers for its mentoring programme.