"At 14, I fell victim to a grooming gang's abuse and exploitation, but now their actions won't be included in the new investigation—it's a heartbreaking betrayal."

WALKING down the street on her own, Christina O’Connor checks over her shoulder – two decades after she was raped as a child by an Asian grooming gang, the fear has never gone away.

Now, as ministers order fresh investigations into a handful of , Christina says the review is “too little, too late” and doesn’t go far enough – as she reveals the devastating toll the abuse took on her life.

Christina O’Connor has spoken of her ordeal Credit: Joanne Crawford – Commissioned by The Sun Fabulous Magazine She was just a child when she was attacked for the first time Credit: Supplied

Christina was just 14 when, in 2006, she was lured by a grooming gang close to her home in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

She had been playing truant from school to escape over her weight when the gang approached her while waiting for a school bus, plying her with vodka and .

It was the beginning of a horrific ordeal. Over the course of the next five years, the abuse became increasingly severe as Christina was subjected to violence, rape and repeated assaults. She fell pregnant twice.

“For three months, they paid for everything; they had cars and – I thought it was brilliant,” Christina, who has waived her right to anonymity, says.

“One of the gang asked me to be his girlfriend, but then they started passing me around. After the first rape, I tried to leave, but they beat me up and threatened to kill my mum.

“They slapped me and other girls. They told us we were worthless and threatened us. They said we had built up debts and there was only one way to repay them.

“I was made to have sex with complete strangers. The men either didn’t use contraception or used plastic bags.

“We had to have sex in front of other men, sometimes with one after another. I was also taken to a hotel, raped by three men, and then just dumped there in the middle of the night.”

Christina’s worried parents would drive around the streets at night looking for her to no avail.

“I didn’t dare tell anyone the truth of what was happening because I thought it would cause more trouble,” she says. “The would bring me home and said there was nothing they could do and told my parents to be stricter with me.”

But Christina says escaping the gang was never easy. Whenever she tried to break away, the men used threats and intimidation to force her back into their control and even targeted her family.

She says: “If I ever tried to refuse the gang, our family house was targeted. They smashed the windows and egged the house. My dad’s tyre wheel was loosened, and his wheel fell off as he was .

“Another time, there were gunshots through our window. My parents had no idea who was behind it all. I felt I had to keep going out and having sex to protect my family.”

Aged 15, Christina fell pregnant, and the gang forced her into having a termination while the pregnancy was still in its early stages. A friend went with her to hospital.

The gang then forced her into a life of , including street robberies and thefts. She was eventually arrested and in February 2011 was sent to a young offender’s institution for a total of three-and-a-half years for counts including burglary, robbery and assault.

By then, she was pregnant again and gave birth in the institution.

It was there that a chaplain heard her story and realised the crimes she had committed were part of the same pattern of grooming and exploitation.

Christina agreed to speak to police, but it would be another three years before any action was taken.

Christina says: “The prison term was actually my salvation; I turned my life around. The chaplain helped me understand that I was a victim and not to blame. It totally changed my outlook on life and myself.

The grooming gang who were jailed for attacking Christina Christina with her dad, Michael Credit: Supplied

The gang, masterminded by Amere Singh Dhaliwal, were jailed across three trials at Leeds Crown Court in 2018, receiving a combined total of 221 years.

This week, the National Crime Agency updated results of Operation Beaconport, which it described as the “most comprehensive and complex ” into child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Eight closed grooming gang cases will be the first to be reopened as part of a national review of hundreds of investigations in which lines of inquiry may have been overlooked due to human error between January 2010 and March 2025.

But Christina says the review won’t help the girls who were abused at the same time as her.

She says: “I was groomed from 2006, and it took years for me to get the police and social services to listen. Why are those children from my generation not included in this? How can we learn lessons if we exclude so much of what happened? There are thousands of victims, yet only eight cases have been identified so far.

“It’s a very small gesture towards a huge problem. The grooming gang inquiry is moving so slowly, it almost feels like they want everyone to forget about it.”

Christina says the impact on her mental has been lifelong. At her lowest point considered suicide as she struggled to cope with the trauma and its aftermath.

“I have learned, somehow, to live with my trauma, but the fear never leaves me. Many victims of grooming take their own lives. I tried to take mine when I was at my lowest, so it seems especially cruel not to look at their stories. If nothing else, we need to highlight mistakes made by police and social services so that other lives can be saved.”

Christina has tried to rebuild her life in the years since, but she says it has been an uphill struggle.

She says: “I worked as a hairdresser for a while in 2013, aged 22, but I had and anxiety, and I was self-medicating with . My employer was lovely, but she had to let me go in the end.”

She later tried to move into childcare, but says her applications were rejected because of her criminal record. A further attempt to train as a chef also fell through.

Christina says she accepts responsibility for the offences she was convicted of, but says they took place under extreme coercion and control from the gang.

She says: “I feel I’m being punished over and over for the offences, and yet I wasn’t responsible for my own behaviour. The men used the robberies as a way of controlling me. I’d never have got into trouble with the police if it hadn’t been for the gang. This is one of many issues which ought to be looked at by a public inquiry. Lots of the girls involved had criminal records, and it wasn’t their fault.”

Christina credits her father, Michael, with supporting her throughout her ordeal, and says it was his death from cancer in March 2022, aged 75, that inspired her to write a book about her experiences, Groomed By A Gang.

She says: “I was always a Daddy’s girl. He did his best, against all odds, to keep me safe. He was very supportive all through the trial and the sentencing too.

“In his final days, he urged me to speak out, to save the next generation, to save the next little girl who is bullied in school.

“I know he’s proud, looking down on me. I hope I can make a difference in his memory. I am speaking out to try to make sure this inquiry is transparent, fair and inclusive. No victim should be excluded or forgotten.”

The National Crime Agency told Sun Club says cases from before 2010 would not be ignored, but were being reviewed separately from Operation Beaconport.