Plot twists and an inconvenient truth

The 20-second Agatha Christie moment

It only took a matter of seconds. Twenty, to be precise.

Until then, the Together for the Children rally was going much the way of previous anti-migrant rallies led by John Francis Gilling, the organiser of last year’s Stop the Boats rally which triggered prolonged violent rioting in Hull city centre and led to dozens of arrests and prison sentences.

Still awaiting trial on charges of racial harassment and and threatening behaviour relating to a separate occasion which he denies, Gilling was again front and centre directing his own brand of street theatre wearing a Union Jack coat.

As a crowd of around 80 supporters looked on, a young woman stepped forward next to him on the terrace below Queen Victoria’ s statue to tell her story as an abuse survivor.

“I was groomed and sexually abused from the age of 11 and I am disgusted,” she said. “I am disgusted with all of you here because it was not an immigrant. It was multiple, middle-aged white men.”

It clearly wasn’t what Gilling or his supporters were expecting to hear. This wasn’t part of the script.

He grabbed the microphone off her before she could say another word while man stepped up behind her, wrapped an arm around her stomach and bundled her away from view.

It was a plot twist worthy of a Agatha Christie novel. The rally’s familiar narrative had been turned on its head.

Video clips of the young woman soon went viral. I later heard from counter-protestors who had been present that she was asking people to remove them because she was concerned for her safety but the genie was already out of the bottle.

I could understand her anxiety. Another young woman I know who did something similar at another far-right rally last year ended up having to move house after several suspicious-looking individuals started appearing outside her home late at night immediately afterwards.

Meanwhile, Gilling’s supporters predictably accused her of being a plant and began scouring through their own livestreams of the event in a bid to identify her. “This was an disgraceful disgraceful demonstration of far-left tactics to shut down real survivors of child sexual abuse, making it harder for real victims to come forward and disclose their abuse,” said one.

I don’t know the woman involved or her history but I admire her bravery. I’ve also previously written about Hull’s far-right activists grooming young girls with abuse stories to fit their own agenda which you can read here.

However, last weekend’s events once again underlined the fact that we are currently living through an extreme and dangerous period of deliberately-engineered radicalism over the issues of immigration and, in particular, grooming gangs.

Some call it narrative capture, which I will return to later. In the meantime, the story of Marlon and Scarlett West is worth digging into too because it also ends with an unexpected plot twist.

The father and daughter first appeared on the national radar when they featured in a special Sky News report on grooming gangs in March 2023. Waiving her right to anonymity, 18-year-old Scarlett told how she had been abused by older men since the age of 14 while Marlon spoke of his frustrations about his dealings with Greater Manchester Police and his local metropolitan borough council in Manchester over the issue.

It was every parent’s worst nightmare - a young daughter disappearing into the world of drugs, criminality and sex trafficking.

Last year West was back on Sky News giving a measured reaction to the publication of the Baird Review, an independent investigation into the experiences of a group of young women and girls who had been arrested and taken into custody by Greater Manchester Police. One of the girls was Scarlett.

Review chairman Dame Vera Baird found Scarlett was unlawfully strip-searched after being arrested in 2019 and was also poorly treated during another spell in custody in 2022. None of the women were fully identified in the report but, once again, Scarlett’s anonymity was waived to allow her father to re-tell her story in public.

At the time, West’s main criticisms centred on police and council procedure but that all changed in January this year when Elon Musk launched a highly-inflammatory and often-misleading series of online posts about grooming gangs in the UK and what he claimed was the failure of the government to do anything about them.

Suddenly, Marlon West was a man in demand and his increasingly-frequent appearances on TV and in newspapers started to include attacks on Labour for opting to hold local inquiries into alleged grooming rather than setting up a national inquiry. He was now firmly part of an increasingly vociferous echo chamber of politicians, commentators and campaigners.

In April he ramped things up another notch with an appearance on Talk TV with Jeremy Kyle. Towards the end of their interview, Kyle reached peak panto-style outrage. “Why the bloody hell do the leaders of Muslims in this country not speak up about how abhorrent this abuse has been?” he asked, conveniently ignoring the fact that many have been doing exactly that for some time without it ever being given proportionate media coverage.

“It’s beyond me,” replied West. “With Scarlett, 99 per cent were Muslim men. They weren’t all Pakistani heritage, there were other ethic communities involved, but they were all Muslim men.”

Having never previously talked in public about race or religion in the context of his daughter being groomed, West stepped on the accelerator.

In July on X he posted: “My daughter was systematically raped, tortured and trafficked around the UK by Muslim raping gangs, not white men. Don’t be so ignorant of what is happening. Hundreds of girls and families contact me, Stick your wake (sic) shit up your arse.”

Last month he posted: “So! I’m racist for calling out Muslim raping gangs. They trafficked and tortured my daughter. Over 60 Asian men raped my daughter.”

A few days later on X he was asked whether he supported neo-Nazi white nationalist group Patriotic Alternative in a tweet featuring images of group members with banners proclaiming ‘End The Invasion Stop Immigration’ and ‘Diversity Means No More White People’. He replied: “Yes, no argument from me. You have my support.”

Had I missed something in the original 2023 Sky News report by Home Editor Jason Farrell identifying the race or religion of Scarlett’s abusers? I watched the seven-minute film again as it’s still available to watch online. There’s not a single mention of either in what is a fairly in-depth piece.

However, the ambiguity didn’t go unnoticed at the time.

Immediately after the report was broadcast, self-styled far-right libertarian and free speech commentator David Atherton posted to his 315.7k followers on X: “Sky News’ Jason Farrell interviews ‘Scarlett’ who was sexually & physically abused as a 14 year old girl. The Manchester Police refused to investigate her case. Mr Farrell completely fails to identify the elephant in the room.”

His post was immediately picked up by Ze Frog Maister, another X blue tick account which is now suspended for reasons unknown. “Wonder what ethic origin the groomer was from …Germany?..no..no most likely not..let’s go down the alphabet..Italy?..no, didn’t think so..Latvia? no…OK.. Monaco.. Netherlands? ..Oman.. getting hot now..Qatar..deffo how now in pedo proximity..just past it..p..p..pa…pak hmm”

At this point, Farrell himself joined the thread with a reply and a plot twist to rival the one seen in Queen Victoria Square last weekend.

“The answer is white British. Sorry I didn’t make that clear,” he said.

So who is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

At the start of his report, Farrell says West first contacted him the year before about a potential story on his daughter. If that’s correct, I can’t see a senior journalist like him spending over a year investigating a story in close co-operation with the family and then lying about a key element of it. Equally, there’s no evidence of West - a prolific X user - immediately challenging Farrell’s “white British” answer.

Like Gilling and the gang suddenly having the rug pulled from under them, I wonder if West is aware how much this plays against his current narrative.

All of which brings me back to the concept of narrative capture - the method of simplifying, reframing and co-opting a complex story or set of facts to serve a particular agenda, often until the original meaning is lost.

Instead of a story like this being told on its own terms, it’s pulled into an existing narrative such as ‘Pakistani-Muslim grooming gangs are the biggest threat to white British girls’ and all the details that don’t fit either get downplayed or simply erased.

Here’s how it generally works. A survivor/victim shares a nuanced account of their experience which often includes mixed perpetrators, institutional failings and personal complexity.

The initial story then gets amplified via the media, campaign groups, online influencers and professional outrage merchants - Musk, Kyle, Gilling, etc - who spotlight elements to support their agenda. Over time, the story gets re-told so that inconvenient details (such as white perpetrators, family abusers, institutional abusers) are erased, creating a simplified villain/victim version.

This version is easier to communicate and generates sympathy. Validation kicks in as it starts to feel like the ‘official’ truth. By now, the re-framed story is part of a much bigger political narrative which feels the right place for it to belong. As such, it starts to get used to argue for culture war policies - anti-immigration crackdowns, anti-Muslim rhetoric, even tougher policing.

Scarlett’s story appears to tick all the above. I’m inclined to believe she was abused by several men. Maybe some were Asian, maybe some were white. However, I’m less certain about her father’s claims about the exclusivity of their race and religion.

Farrell’s reply in 2023 directly contradicts what West is saying now. It’s also worth pointing out that no-one has yet been charged or convicted in connection with any of the alleged abuse she suffered.

There’s also a wider point to both plot twists mentioned here.

Perhaps it’s time to give victims the autonomy to tell their own stories in their own time and in their own words without the pressure of having to fit to a script or turning testimony into propaganda.

Hoever, there’s also an inconvenient truth being deliberately ignored by the echo chamber gang.

Ultimately, the sexual abuse of children is not about skin colour or religion, it’s about men. The sooner the male of the species finally wakes up to this problem the better.