Three Girls was the story of my life

Over three nights this week, five million viewers watched a BBC drama hauntingly reveal the ­horrific sexual exploitation of three schoolgirls in Rochdale.

For one woman, Three Girls is not a story. “It’s my life,” she says. “I was basically watching my life.”

At the ages of 13 and 14, Emma Jackson, which is not her real name, was sexually exploited by a gang of predominantly British Pakistani men in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

Last Friday she finally saw the last of those men brought to justice, as 45-year-old Zalgai Ahmadi was jailed for nine years.

“Watching the programme, I just kept thinking that was my reality,” Emma says. “I physically and
emotionally experienced all of that.

“The character of Holly reminded me how you just become a zombie after a while. You fight back and then you stop fighting because nobody cares, and you become a zombie.”

Like Holly, Emma was befriended by an older man with a nice car who showered her with presents, ­introduced her to alcohol. He went on to rape her in an alleyway behind Boots the chemist.

Just as in the Three Girls story, the abuse went on in plain sight. “What I still find shocking is how open it was,” she says.

“One of the rapes took place in broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon in Clifton Park in Rotherham. A couple walked past but did nothing. It just told you no one cared.”

Her rapist, Sageer Hussain, was the youngest of four brothers, each now convicted of numerous sex-grooming offences. When 13-year-old Emma eventually gathered the courage to tell her mum, she rang the police.

“I had the clothes,” she says. “I couldn’t put them in the wash basket because they were such a mess, covered in blood.”

It’s the only time her voice falters. It could have all ended at that moment 14 years ago. “The police lost the clothes,” she says quietly. “They said it was my word against his.”