Mikhaila Peterson in conversation with Samantha Smith, a grooming gang survivor from Telford.

Samantha is now 23 years old and is a political communicator and writer. As well as on TV and in publications like The Telegraph, she appears on YouTube and on X as Samantha Taghoy. Talking to Mikhaila, who is Jordan Peterson’s daughter and herself a successful podcaster and advocate of the Lion Diet, Samantha details her childhood and experience of abuse.

Samantha was only 5 years old when she felt a man’s hand in her underwear, whilst she sat on his lap. Then after she had a succession of experiences of being targeted by men for her vulnerability and youth. Samantha’s first abuser was a friend of the family and one who knew that her father had recently died. He preyed on her sadness and need for affection, although her need was for paternal love and not the molestation she received. At any age this would be inappropriate behaviour but to experience this as a five year old child is particularly appalling.

Samantha had a tough childhood and did not know what a proper romantic or sexual relationship entailed. She was in and out of children’s homes but was very much seen as the problem, instead of the fact that she had a problem because of the men who groomed and abused her. They did the same to many other girls. In Telford itself, the problem of grooming gangs was raised but there was a particular silence around abusers of Pakistani Muslim origin. They are often what the media refers to as “Asian.” These gangs were in Telford, Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, Banbury and Birmingham to name a few places. I believe there was also a gang in leafy old Oxford.

As I have written about before because it continues to be covered up, the key demographic was that the perpetrators of the grooming gangs were Pakistani Muslim men, older, married, with families and they targeted predominately white working class girls. The main age group of the girls is between 11-15 years. The way these men worked was as a gang and what Samantha describes is very similar to the BBC adaptation of one of the scandals taking place in Rochdale. The men were taxi drivers and take away owners, driving the girls to places, opening their shops to the girls and going to each others’ houses to pass the girls around.

It was mass gang rape but the grooming element as Samantha says is very important. The girls were manipulated, plied with drugs, alcohol, shown attention and referred to the men as their Asian boyfriends. The idea of the men was to normalise the abuse. Sex at anytime they want, rape, being passed from one man to another, being filmed whilst asked to dance for the men (the Three Girls drama has this particular detail). All this was normalised and in exchange “for all the nice things” the men gave the girls. The key detail being these were men and those were just girls. You don’t offer a child some chips at your shop, then go onto to offer more and more in order to get sex from them, if you are a moral and responsible human being.

As Samantha says, each gang has a ring leader and if they were disobeyed, the girls would be be threatened, beaten, have threats to their family and homes and were pretty much under surveillance by these men. Then men all worked together in their community, all in touch via their phones and businesses.

The key workers at children’s homes and other places would alert the police who turned a blind eye. A detective from the child sexual exploitation (CSE) team asked Samantha about her experience starting from age 5, if she had consented to the sex. As if a child can and should consent to sex. This was the level of ignorance and apathy towards the children. Parents who would bang on the doors of the police met with a similar response. In the case of Oldham, Raja Miha has been reporting the grooming gangs scandal since his time working alongside the most deprived communities. The police would actually threaten anyone who spoke up about the grooming gangs and even at council meetings, people were silenced and threatened.

The language as reported in documents and inquiries is that the victims of the grooming gangs were “white slags” and “Paki shaggers” who “chose this lifestyle.” This is children we are talking about, targeted children. Our same society that makes a big deal out of university teachers and professors not having relationships with adult students because the brain is still developing at 19 years, is the very same condemning and blaming child victims of the grooming gangs. The more elite and out of touch society is with anyone who doesn’t seem to fit their definition of a proper person or child, the quicker they dehumanise the most vulnerable children in society. Some who had been spoken to police constable Maggie Oliver described the children as write offs and it was better had they not been born.

The cruel and hypocritical response to the grooming gang victims is why numerous people praise Elon Musk for raising awareness of the scandal on a global level. After decades of cover ups since the 1970s, the government, politicians, authorities and systems all complicit to an extent in the grooming gangs, are being called to account. Finally, it feels like some form of justice may finally be served, just by having an open dialogue.

As Samantha says, you can call people names like bigot, far right, conspiracist but facts don’t lie. In the United Kingdom we know the state our country is in and we see the state of the Labour Party that is in charge of our country. Politicians like Ivor Caplan who attacked those wanting an inquiry into the grooming gangs and called them far right, has himself been arrested for possessing indecent images and inappropriately communicating with a 15 year old boy. Mikhaila said that his X account featured actual pornography, it has been taken down now. He’s not the only rotter you have in positions of power as I have been listening to Raja Miah talk about others. The grooming gang members in Oldham were linked to the Labour Party and numerous councils are Labour led, which means leaders like Arooj Shah who has affiliations with Islamists and gangsters, are responsible for the cover ups and corruption.

When you look at who has the power and how they choose to use it; gain for themselves and censorship when it comes to public discussion then it’s not hard to see the corruption, deliberate cover up and strategy of those who run this country. I believe our own prime minister, Keir Starmer, has wanted an alliance between Islam and his own communist beliefs in order to make Britain lose her sovereignty, her culture, values and law. He is deliberately dismantling the system of this country and this is coming from me; someone who has always given people the benefit of the doubt. I have believed in the good in all people, in errors and naivety but I have read and heard too much to ignore the reality.

Keir Starmer became our prime minister last July and already we have seen freedom of speech penalised and dissenting dialogue labelled far right. I am writing this on sub stack but who knows how long for and I definitely wouldn’t be able to post this on Facebook. (I have proof of this).

There has been some racism particuarly in the heat of the moment after three little girls lost their lives to Axel Rudakabana who stabbed them at a Taylor Swift themed dance class. Because of the cover up of his identity, people assumed he was an Islamist and it turned out they were right, as he had a copy of an Al Queda terrorist manual. Some people wanted to cause harm to mosques. Fine; penalise them for inciting racial hatred and violence. But there has been no such justice doled out to Islamists inciting hatred towards Jews and inflicting violence on police. (See the Palestine marches and Manchester airport incident in 2024 with two Pakistani Muslim brothers). There is a difference between this breed of Muslims who have made the ideology of Islam into an aggressive identity and who get special treatment versus an assimilating Muslim like Raja Miah.

Keir Starmer was a lawyer but instead of introducing justice to this country, he continues to throw the country under the bus in order to appease the ideology of Islam. I believe that all aligns with his own pursuit of power and his ideology that hates the country of Britain. These are all talking points bought up in the discussion between Mikhaila and Samantha. When from your youth you start to understand how a climate of fear works as you report your experiences to authority only to be told you, the child, are the problem then you recognise how fear is used to silence the masses. All done under sneaky little laws, no guns needed.

Samantha didn’t start out to write and speak about her experiences but as the scandal of Jeffrey Epstein was being covered and the identities of the girls he exploited discussed, Samantha wanted to raise awareness of a scandal that was happening in our country itself. So, she spoke about her experience that matched that of numerous girls targeted by grooming gangs. When she appeared on TV, police visited her house to tell her that this is to be expected whenever she goes on TV. She was threatened.

Another survivor, Sammy Woodhouse who is also speaking publicly has had her online activity monitored with regard to talking about her experiences.

The lack of free speech via penalty and threat draws comparison to Justin Trudeau’s Canada. Samantha Smith is bi-racial herself and her mum came to the United Kingdom legally and has paid towards the economy. When she talks about immigration, she shares similar views to me. That legal and respectful migrants are one thing but those who don’t assimilate, commit crimes and disdainfully disregard British law and values must be deported. For the sake of our safety and our human rights, instead of focusing on the rights of criminals.

Our British system is left leaning and empathetic compared to other countries. Samantha says that our Conservative Party legalised gay marriage in 2013 and so compared to the Republicans in America, even Conservatives are tolerant and lenient on certain issues. That has been taken advantage of as Samantha cites one of many examples. In one case a Middle Eastern migrant went to Greece, got granted asylum and then decided to illegally come to the U.K. This continues to happen as men who aren’t vulnerable and of fighting age can see our system is lenient in the U.K. He will be given benefits and continue to take advantage of our system. If there is no incentive to learn and speak English, assimilate and get a job, then this will naturally attract many others like the 450, 000 migrants illegal and legal we receive per year. (Please correct me if that figure is wrong. I picked it up from the conversation I’m covering).

This isn’t the same debate as the visa issue in America that imports Indian workers seemingly at detriment to its own. Rather, in the U.K. we are importing not only opportunists but those whose values aggressively clash with ours. How many more targeted concerts, buses, churches, Christian MP’s and masses of girls will it take for the U.K to protect itself?

One of the reasons I write about this is I don’t have that fear of being a dissenting voice. I don’t need to fear job loss, yes I’m very lucky and the worst I may get is another look of disdain from someone else. “That far right coconut” I may be called. I’m no Alison Pearson and so the police won’t turn up to my house. They are not interested in little old me and I hope it remains so, so I can keep on writing. However, I can’t say I’m that confident that things won’t get worse. But that never means we give up or fool ourselves into denying the reality.

When a woman like Samantha tells you her experience, you believe it. Or do we just “believe all women” only when it’s convenient?

Thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far. I also want to say that you’re not seeing things, my substack no longer has Notes. It may have the Notes section but that is currently empty. I am going to be focusing on just long form posts but occasionally also re stacking other authors’ posts within my Notes. I hope that makes sense and I am sorry for deleting your comments along with the Notes. I just really needed a spring clean.

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