Leona Whitworth, 28, waived her anonymity to tell her story. It comes in the week a damning report revealed thousands of corrupt officers may be serving in England and Wales. Leona, whose mother was disabled with mental health problems, was easy prey for a woman called Amanda Spencer, who was convicted eight years ago of grooming young girls in Sheffield and selling them for sex. “I honestly thought I loved her,” Leona said. “He understood everything I was saying, and he listened, and he said he loved me and cared about me. I thought he cared about me.” Spencer would take young girls to parties where he would introduce them to men. At age 13, Leona says she was drugged and woke up to find a man raping her. He says he was beaten by Spencer and several men until he complied. He told Sky News: “I spent weeks with them being beaten, raped and drugged. And then they allowed me to go home, they allowed me to go to school, they allowed me to see my friends, because they knew they could come and get me whenever they wanted.” At first, she thought she was being punished for doing something wrong. He said, “I guess that’s how kids think, isn’t it? If they always grow up wrong, always being the bad kid, then if something bad happens, it’s always going to be your fault. Obviously you did something to start it happening this”. For months, she was convinced by her abusers to keep the whole thing a secret, and says authorities, including police, social workers and teachers, showed a lack of curiosity whenever she disappeared. He said: “It wasn’t about ‘what did you do?’ It was, “what do you think you’re doing?” My answer was always, “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” “No one would believe me. They talked me into it. No one will believe me and if I say anything, what will happen to my family. They knew where I lived. My mom was a disabled woman. What will she do She will call the police;” Image: Leona Whitworth spoke to Sky News about her experiences Leona’s faith in the police was further shaken, she claims, when she discovered that one of her abusers was a police officer. He claims he realized this when he picked her up once after she disappeared. He says he pretended he didn’t know her. “He just talked to me like the cops,” she recalls. “You know everyone is worried about you, right? You can’t keep putting your family through this. You’ve got a lot of people out there looking for you, and you’re wasting our resources doing that.” The claim comes after the police inspectorate warned earlier this week that poor vetting was allowing sexual predators to join police forces. The review, commissioned after the killing of Sarah Everard by a serving Met Police officer, found it was currently “too easy for the wrong people” to join and stay in the police force. Responding to Leona’s allegations, South Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Lauren Poultney said: “What happened to Leona at the hands of her abusers is simply inexcusable and I am extremely concerned today that the trauma she suffered may have involved a serving police officer with the force. “There is no place in policing for people who abuse their position for criminal behavior and we proactively root out those who do. “I want to tell Leona directly that I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to get as many details as you can provide regarding this officer. “We are here to listen and if you feel ready to make a report, I will personally see to it that this matter is thoroughly investigated by the specially trained officers of the anti-corruption unit. “If you feel more comfortable talking to a third party, you can go to Crimestoppers or even the National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood, which was dedicated to investigating child sexual exploitation offenses in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. “To Leona, and any other victims or survivors who haven’t yet felt ready to tell someone what happened to them – be sure it’s never too late to make that report.” Leona did not report the incident to the officer at the time. He eventually escaped to Norfolk – and one day the police came knocking after he had been identified by others as a child victim. He was trying to forget and told Sky News that when the police arrived “I felt like the earth was eating me”. He says: “I had tried to pretend it wasn’t real. If it’s a bad dream, it doesn’t hurt, right? If it’s a bad dream, it never happened. It’s not real.” In May 2014, after a trial at Sheffield Crown Court, Spencer was jailed for 12 years along with one of the thugs. Detective Chief Inspector Bob Chapman, who led the investigation, said Spencer had committed “prolonged and calculated abuse” and had “preyed on some of the most vulnerable people in our community, grooming them under the guise of friendship, using the luring them with drink and drugs to force them to do what she wanted and when her demands were not met, she threatened violence, intimidating them into submission.” But years later, for Leona, the demons don’t go away. She doesn’t remember how many men abused her during the time she was under Spencer’s control. He said: “I don’t know. And as strange as it sounds, I don’t want to know. “I don’t want to know because the amount I know, whether it was my fault or not, I still feel dirty.” Leona has shown incredible courage to speak out, but it’s a sign of the damage she still carries that she ended the interview asking herself if she was somehow to blame. Of course, it’s no 13-year-old girl’s fault in this situation, but sometimes it takes years to come to terms with it, and the memories can never be erased.
