Three Girls

[Harrowby Hall]

I am opening this in the General Discussion section because I think it is too important to languish in the Entertainment ghetto - but if the mods think otherwise, then so be it ...

Did anyone watch Three Girls last night?

If so what was your reaction? What do you think this was telling us about the real values of public agencies such as the police and social services?

I found it uncomfortable and disturbing - certainly for the pain the adolescent girls were experiencing, but perhaps more for the patronising, uninvolved, cold reactions of jobsworths in the police station and the lack of compassion from unempathetic box-ticking social workers dismissing fear and abuse as indicative of "life style choices,"

[Rhiannon]

I didn't watch the programme but I did follow the case in the press. From what I can gather the public agencies involved largely served themselves.

[Robbie]

I did watch it and saw your post earlier Harrowby but am trying to find the words to convey my impression.There are two more episodes so I might wait until the end to comment fully.

For now all I will say is there is nothing new under the sun, it was all so familiar to me from people I knew as a teenager, forty years and more ago. Completely different demographic but story the same, i could almost recognise the girls. It was upsetting but needed to be shown because it still goes on as it has always.

Agree with what Rhiannon said.

[Nearly Sane]

Having just commented on john's thread about making films from books, which I have no problem with, I think the idea of fictional accounts of real life incidents is far greyer in shade. I don't know if I will watch because I am not sure that it will add anything to my knowledge and may cloud the issue. I appreciate that the motivation behind it may be with the best of intentions but that may contribute to a lack of accuracy.


I watched the In Plain Sight dramatisation of the Peter Manuel murders, and was reasonably confident that I would know the changes to the actual story. Not long after that I read Denise Mina's fictionalisation of the case, The Long Drop, and again I knew what was being 'added' or changed. I am wary of not knowing that.


ETA Having said that I remembered that I watched Spotlight, and found it a driver to read up on the events it covered, and even then knowing that much of the perception would be controlled by both my own thoughts from the film and how reporting of the story is also from a partial viewpoint.

[Rhiannon]

All television work about real events can be biased. Documentaries are no different. It depends on the story that the programme makers want to tell.

[Nearly Sane]

All television work about real events can be biased. Documentaries are no different. It depends on the story that the programme makers want to tell.

At one level all programmes are biased no matter what, fictionalisation creates a deliberate need for it in a way that a documentary does not.

[Robbie]

Not that long ago I read about one of the girls in the Rotherham case, she told her story very well.It was still quite fresh in my mind as I watched the programme - Three Girls - over three nights.

It really was good,you could feel some of what the girls felt & their families, the sex worker lady (who was later sacked) played by Maxine Peake, three police officers who reopened the case.

There was nothing sensitive about the dramatisation though some stuff i'd read about wasnot shown.

Full marks to the entire cast for such convincing acting, not least the young actors who played the three girls and those who played the very nasty perps - must have been uncomfortable to take on such demanding roles.

A shameful business, shame on those who didn't bother or turned a blind eye.

[Rhiannon]

Ive just been thinking about this again as I read something about the case this morning. It seems from the newspaper accounts and the statements from those investigating what happened that the victims were treated as 'little slags', that somehow they were complicit in what happened or even initiated it. One councillor is quoted as saying that the girls tricked the men into sleeping with them by wearing make-up and dressing to look older. The reason given for this is that the girls are white and from poor backgrounds.

There are people who committed rape on these girls still walking free - only half the accused came to trial in Rochdale and there are similar scandals in Rotherham and elsewhere too. One figure I read this morning suggests that there could be two thousand victims. This problem hasn't gone away.

The team behind this dramatisation also made Five Daughters, reminding people that the victims of Steve Wright were women, daughters, mothers, sisters, friends, not just 'prostitutes'. I think what this drama does is force people to face that these girls aren't somehow 'less' because of who they are and where they come from, as the authorities apparently believed and would have us believe. They are girls the same as girls everywhere, and they deserve better.

[Harrowby Hall]

...   It seems from the newspaper accounts and the statements from those investigating what happened that the victims were treated as 'little slags' ...   

Indeed. And the social workers, in the first episode, determined that the girls had "made a lifestyle choice" and were therefore "prostitutes" ignoring that - legally - these girls were children, could not consent to sexual intercourse and were consequently not entitled to any protection or welfare services.

That sort of thinking, surely, means that the social workers themselves - by failing to take ANY action - were accessories to any continuing actions of the guilty men. The duty of the social workers was to protect the girls not abandon them.

[Robbie]

I found the attitude of the social workers  as if they had no empathy or insight particularly shocking! In some ways worse than the hard faced first lot of police (couldn't understand why no policewoman was involved in the initial interviews). The social workers were portrayed as being remote from those they were employed to help, can't think of other way to describe.

As for putting that little girl in care when her mother had the support of her parents - & the other girl being threatened that her baby would be put in care, made me angry.

[SweetPea]

The first two programmes disturbed me so much I literally had associated dreams and so decided not to watch the final programme. Never have I had linked dreams before even after watching horror movies or any dark dramas, it was very strange. But the horrific nature of what these girls went through, and at such a young age, beggars belief. Here's praying they have received adequate counselling and are now recovering well from their trauma.

Just have to add, I know nothing of social workers so cannot comment, but have relations and one close family member in the police force. This particular member has had family liaison duties and I can assure you not all police officers are as cold-hearted as those so often portrayed and made out to be by the media.   

[Robbie]

I had a dream associated with the programme too Sweet Pea after the second episode (I often dream about things I've watched or read). Didn't watch the third last night but Friday is my day off and I caught up with it early this morning in bed on iplayer.

No-one thinks all police are uncaring, the first lot involved in the case were unsympathetic and it was felt there was no chance of a prosecution.They'd also been directed to concentrate on other crimes where they were more likely to catch criminals and prosecute so, bad as it sounds,the plight of the girls was low priority.

The police who came onto the scene later had a completely different attitude they were committed to helping the girls and sending the men to prison.

[SweetPea]

Yes, strange how we both had associated dreams after watching the programmes, Robinson. It was something about the graphics of the production. Do you know if it was produced by the same team that made the Shannon Matthews programmes? They did have a very similar format.

[Robbie]

No idea sweet Pea.
Three Girls certainly didn't pull any punches,there was no glamourisation. As well as being frightening it was shoddy, scruffy and dreary. Bleak. That's what it's like though.

Still goes on, always has always will but there is some hope, the Rotherham case set a precedent and the authorities treat such things more seriously now.