Hijacked: How Grooming Survivors Were Exploited by a Political Circus

©️ By Sophie Lewis | The Grooming Files | @sophielewiseditorial

Let’s cut through the bullshit.

For years now, a very specific narrative has been pushed around grooming gangs in the UK — one that focuses almost exclusively on Asian or Muslim perpetrators, painting child sexual exploitation as something foreign, cultural, or imported. And leading that charge? The far-right’s poster boy, Tommy Robinson — a man who’s made a career, and a fortune, out of co-opting survivor stories to fuel racial hate and build his personal brand.

But as a white, British woman, and a survivor of grooming myself. I’m here to tell you: it’s a lie. A distraction. And a disgrace.

White Men Groom Too — You Just Don’t Hear About It

Let’s talk about the stats. You’ll hear people say things like “84% of grooming gang offenders are Asian,” but what they don’t tell you is that those figures come from selective, pre-framed studies based on specific gang prosecutions, not the wider landscape of child sexual abuse. In reality, the vast majority of paedophiles, rapists, traffickers and abusers in the UK are white men. Why? Because the UK is a majority white country.

But you don’t see Tommy running exposés on white grooming gangs, do you?

Where was the outrage over Catholic Church abuse, or the VIP paedophile rings linked to government officials, MPs, judges, and even royalty?

Where’s the national inquiry into middle-class white dads sharing Dropbox folders of child abuse material?

You won’t find it because it doesn’t fit the agenda.

The Real Agenda: Exploit, Distract, Divide

Tommy Robinson didn’t “give survivors a voice.”
He hijacked our pain and turned it into political theatre.

He branded himself as a saviour while using the stories of girls like us to push anti-Muslim hate, attract donations, and sell merch. And now he’s riding high off the back of a “national inquiry” into grooming gangs that he didn’t cause, he simply claimed credit for a decades-long fight waged by actual survivors and advocates who never got airtime, because we weren’t controversial enough.

This isn’t justice.
It’s racial opportunism.

Survivor-Led, Not Agenda-Led

At The Grooming Files, I don’t cherry-pick which predators to expose based on skin colour or clickbait potential. I document all grooming. All abuse. No filter. No spin.

I’ve exposed white offenders who were social workers, police officers, teachers, fathers, youth workers, and more. I’ve spoken to the predators themselves, pulled transcripts, confronted power, and faced the cost emotionally, legally, financially.

And I’ve done it without needing to hijack movements or rile up mobs.

Because justice shouldn’t be political.
It should be universal.

If You’re Only Angry at Brown Offenders — You’re Not Angry About Grooming

Let’s be brutally honest.

If your outrage only shows up when the abuser is brown, but you fall silent when he’s white, you’re not angry about child abuse, you’re angry about race.

That’s not activism.
That’s bigotry in survivor’s clothing.

And while people scream about “Asian grooming gangs,” thousands of white children are being abused by white men behind closed doors, unnoticed, unreported, and unchallenged, because we’re too busy pushing someone else’s agenda to see the bigger picture.

The Grooming Crisis Is Bigger Than Race — And We Know It

Child sexual abuse is systemic.
It spans all races, all religions, all classes.

It’s woven into institutions, covered up by councils, mishandled by police, and ignored by governments, because it’s inconvenient, messy, and doesn’t play well in the polls.

We will not let political grifters rewrite our stories.
We will not let survivor pain become campaign fuel.

We are taking our narrative back.

You’re Not My Voice — And You Never Were

To every Tommy-worshipper crying “he’s doing more than anyone else” wake the fuck up.

He’s doing more damage than you realise. He’s made it harder for real survivor-led projects to get heard, funded, and taken seriously. He’s undermined our credibility, poisoned the space, and turned trauma into theatre.

And to Tommy himself, if you’re reading this?

You’re not my voice. You never were.

I speak for myself.
I speak for the survivors you never platformed.
I speak for the girls who were groomed by white men, and never fit your script.

This is our story, not yours to sell.