A woman who was raped in Oldham has waived her right to anonymity to
call on David Cameron to launch a parliamentary inquiry over child
exploitation.
Samantha Roberts, 18, wants to
highlight the issue in the wake of the recent court case in which eight
Pakistani men and one Afghan received jail sentences of between four and
19 years for a range of sexual offences against five white girls in
Rochdale.
She was picked up in a car in Oldham at the age of 12 by
39-year-old Shakil Chowdhury, and driven to a house where he and three
other Asian men raped her.
Chowdhury was jailed for six years in
October 2007 and has since been released but her other attackers have
not been caught, reported the Oldham Chronicle.
Speaking to her
local newspaper, she said: "It's ridiculous that it has to take five
girls, as in this case, for people to take notice.
"I've been
dealing with it for six years. I think it needed to be blown up in the
media and across the country to get more people talking about it and the
sentencing changed."
She said the 19-year sentence given at
Liverpool Crown Court earlier this month to a 59-year-old man - who
cannot be named for legal reasons - was "a good sentence".
"I'm just gutted the same didn't happen with my case," she said.
"People have now realised that things like this do go on in places like Oldham and Rochdale. There are cultural problems."
She has written a letter to the Prime Minister to ask to him to investigate the issue and said she wanted to meet him in person.
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