Travails of Youth: A Novella

This book is a work of fiction drawing on a number of events which took place in several places in England from the 1980s to the 2020s. All characters are fictional and any resemblance to real people, events and places is purely coincidental. The outline of the story is as follows.

Lucy, who is just twelve at the commencement of the story, and her 70-year old Gran, with whom she is very close, discover a systematic attempt to groom white girls between the ages of 11 and 16, addict them and coerce them into a life of endless sexual exploitation.
They are so appalled by what they learn that they decide to try to do something about it. They attend a so-called private Youth Café and observe and photograph what is happening there, subsequently seeking to report their findings to the Police.

The demands of getting the information acted on by the Police are complex, frustrating and lengthy. They realize that one of the reasons for this is the fear of the Police and Social Services of being accused of Islamophobia and racism by members and groups in the local comparable communities. On the death of her Gran, by coincidence Lucy meets Janice, a woman newspaper reporter on the local ‘Star’. Lucy and Janice become close friends and continue the campaign together now to a much wider audience.

Eventually a Public Inquiry is established by one Local Authority, although by that time many such instances of violent sexual exploitation of under-age girls have occurred across the country and they are often accompanied by induced drug addiction. Finally action by the Forces of Law and Order to bring the culprits to justice is fulfilled by the 2020s, by which time Lucy is in her 30s and sporting an Honour for her endeavours.