An authoritative film beaten to the punch by Three Girls
‘Iwish I had a childhood. Justice won’t ever make me feel better. Your thoughts last forever.” This was the haunting, heartbreaking final piece of testimony in The Betrayed Girls (BBC One) – a brilliant but gruelling feature-length documentary about the Rochdale abuse scandal.
Director Henry Singer’s sombre film told the decade-long story via the anonymous accounts of victims who had never been given a voice before, alongside interviews with people who spoke out on their behalf – the likes of lead investigator DC Maggie Oliver and sexual health worker Sara Rowbotham, whose heroic efforts were dramatised this spring in superlative BBC series Three Girls.
The monstrous wrongdoing here was twofold: both the abuse itself, described by victims in grim detail, and the wilful refusal to act by authorities, who turned their backs for fear of inflaming racial tensions in Northern towns.
It turned out, of course, that police and social services had long known about the abuse of white teenage girls by men of Pakistani origin – and this systematic grooming, rape and sex trafficking stretched far beyond Rochdale. When perpetrators were prosecuted, they were treated as one-offs, with no connections made or pattern spotted. For years, vulnerable children’s cries for help were ignored.
Survivors’ harrowing accounts were spoken by actors, with faces shown only in close-up. We watched tears roll from eyelashes and cigarettes being held in trembling fingers as traumas were relived. The overwhelming feelings, though, were fury and frustration as years went by and still nothing was done.
The documentary didn’t pull any punches. Greater Manchester Police were roundly criticised for burying the case initially. Rowbotham told a stunned parliamentary inquiry how she raised 181 alerts to no avail. Nazir Afzal, who took over as Chief Crown Prosecutor for north-west England in 2011, was shocked by the failings he found: “Social services, police, schools, health… Every agency in this country has let down child victims of sexual abuse over generations.”
This fine film was somewhat beaten to the punch by Three Girls, which is why it wasn’t quite a five-star programme. Yet it was authoritative and righteously angry, with the power of a gut-punch.
What does it mean to be gay and British in 2017? A gem of a film hidden behind a tiresome punning title, 50 Shades of Gay (Channel 4) found actor Rupert Everett seeking answers. He didn’t succeed but it was hugely enjoyable watching him try.
Everett idiosyncratically explored the changes in gay life in the halfcentury since the decriminalisation of male homosexuality. “I can only imagine what my father would’ve thought as he took the 8.17 train from Witham into Liverpool Street and read the news that homosexuality had been legalised,” Everett pondered, in gloriously plummy tones. “Not knowing that across the country, I was sitting in my school shorts, plotting and preparing for a long career as a screaming queen.”
Much has been gained in the journey towards mainstream acceptance, yet has the rebellious, outsider spirit of gay culture been lost along the way? Our host thought so, as he spoke Polari slang and reminisced about cruising leather-clad men in alleys.
He zipped around the country to meet LGBT people from all walks of life: “gangsta gay” rapper Jai’rouge, actors from youth soap Hollyoaks
(“It’s like porn!” Everett exclaimed delightedly) and Essex carpenter Steve, who cheerfully puts up with lots of “banter” on building sites.
A retired policeman who used to bust cottagers showed Everett around the public loo he once staked out. Former BP boss Lord Browne discussed the problems of being gay in big business. In Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, aka the lesbian capital of Britain, Everett joined the local choir for a rousing rendition of I Am Woman. “I feel empowered!” he cried.
He then joined Diana, Princess of Wales’s former royal butler Paul Burrell on the day before his gay wedding (“gruesome events”, sniffed Everett) to help with the floral arrangements – stereotypes be damned. Burrell’s tales of meeting his first wife in the Queen’s bedroom and being “gayish” were less remarkable than his clanging name-dropping.
It was challenging fare at times – the bracingly un-pc Everett spoke frankly about sex, drugs and the school showers – but ultimately moving, optimistic and very funny.