Dramatising a contemporary childhood sexual abuse narrative: reinforcing a hierarchy of victims

ABSTRACT

Following a number of high-profile sexual exploitation/grooming cases, such as that which culminated in the trial of nine men in Rochdale, UK in 2012, and accusations against Jimmy Savile and other celebrity figures, the sexual abuse of children has been recognised as an issue of major public concern. These cases received considerable news coverage, but there has also been a proliferation of dramas covering both “real life” events and fictional stories. In this article I take a narrative approach to explore the construction of victims in two such dramas both aired on UK television in 2017 and later broadcast worldwide: Three Girls, a docudrama based on the Rochdale case, and Unforgotten, a fictional drama that resonates with the Savile case. In drawing on a singular narrative of childhood sexual abuse and the ideal victim these dramas, I argue, leave many stories untold, and help to consolidate a new victim hierarchy—based not on what is done to a person, but on who they are or might (have) become. The dangers of this or any other singular story, I argue, go beyond the UK context of these two dramas.

KEYWORDS:

• Dramatising child sexual abuse
• historic sexual abuse
• stories
• narrative frameworks
• victims

Introduction

In this article I take a unique narrative approach to explore the role of the media, and in particular popular drama, in reinforcing a public narrative of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) which I argue prioritises some victims’ stories and contributes to a hierarchy that helps to position some victims as unworthy, even as their experiences appear to be central. As I show, such “hierarchies of credibility” (Tanya Horeck and Diane Negra 2021) also resonate through media coverage of CSA stories. The ways in which gender, race, age and class shape which victims count have long been documented within feminist media studies (Karen Boyle, 2018). Media is arguably one of the key sites for defining social problems (Jennifer F. Chmielewski, Deborah L. Tolman and Hunter Kincaid, 2017; Lucia C. Lykke 2016) and policing “appropriate” sexuality (Angela McRobbie 2004), particularly young female sexuality. Whilst this might take place within “hard” and “soft” news programmes, popular drama, including crime drama, has also become a significant vehicle for framing important contemporary social and political issues. Whilst clearly an effective way of raising awareness and bringing issues to the attention of the public, as well as practitioners and policy makers, in a more nuanced way than might be seen in news/“factual” programmes such dramatisations are only ever partial. As I argue here in relation to CSA, all dramas, even as they lay claim to authenticity and validity, whether fictional creations or based on “real events,” are themselves constrained by currently circulating narrative frameworks and present a particular understanding of CSA and its victims. They also perhaps need someone to make the story “palatable” as Horeck suggests of Theron in the portrayal of Aileen Wuornos (2007).

In this paper I explore the narrative frameworks of two dramas, Three Girls and Unforgotten (series two) both broadcast on UK television in 2017 and later released worldwide via Netflix. My intention is not to compare the two, which are in many respects very different, but rather to show how a dominant narrative framework of CSA which informs, or delimits, our everyday understandings of sexual abuse is drawn on, not only in fictional dramas but also in those based on real characters and events. The first, Three Girls, is a docudrama based on the “real life” events surrounding the grooming and sexual exploitation of young girls in Rochdale, England. The second, Unforgotten, is a fictional drama featuring adult victims of historic CSA. Although both are set in the UK the dangers of this or any singular story go beyond this topic or context. Before exploring these two dramas I first discuss the role of narratives and the aetiology of “the harm story of CSA” (Lindsay O’Dell 2003) and its corollary the “survivor discourse” (Marcia Worrell 2003) which, together with constructions of childhood sexual innocence and the ideal victim, underpin our contemporary CSA narrative. In doing so I both caution against using a singular narrative and move beyond an analysis of class to explore constructions of the ideal victim as sexually innocent, white, middle-class—and no longer only female.

Storytelling, contemporary narratives and CSA

As I have argued elsewhere (Jo Woodiwiss 2009, 2017) we are not free to tell any story about the lives of ourselves or others, but are constrained by narrative frameworks that are both historically and culturally specific (Ken Plummer 1995, 2001; Steph Lawler 2002; Zygmunt Bauman 2001). This applies as much to the makers of contemporary drama and documentaries as it does to our own biographies. When it comes to telling stories of CSA, whether in political and policy discourse or contemporary drama, one narrative has come to dominate. The history of this narrative shows that we have gone from concerns about moral purity and eugenics to believing CSA to have little real effect on its victims, to measuring its wrongfulness in terms of the harm it causes to victims (Jo Woodiwiss 2014) and increasingly to their future potential. This “harm story” (O’Dell 2003) or “survivor discourse” (Worrell 2003) constructs CSA as overwhelmingly and inevitably harmful and (genuine) victims as passive, sexually innocent and lacking agency. It is against this “ideal” or “culturally approved victim” (Sharon Lamb 1999, 117) that victims, their experiences and increasingly the perceived consequences of any abuse, can be judged, by victims themselves as well as by others, and increasingly used as a measure against which to judge degrees of wrongfulness (Woodiwiss 2014).

Girls and young women’s sexual agency, or even knowledge, has long been constructed as problematic (Danielle Egan and Gail Hawkes 2009, 2010, 2012) and something to be policed. As Chmielewski, Tolman, and Kincaid (2017, 419) point out in relation to sexting, “desire and agency in the service of pleasure were positioned as solely belonging to ‘bad’ girls.” Therefore, when sexually active and/or knowledgeable girls become victims of sexual abuse they are easily (or already) positioned not only as bad but outside the protective cloak of childhood innocence, leaving them not only to blame but unprotected (Heather D’Cruz and Karen Stagmatti 2008). In this way, girls and young women who are victims of CSA, find themselves the focus of concern and it is their sexuality or sexual activity, that is constructed as problematic, not their abusers. In drawing increasingly on the relatively new concept of victims’ “risky sexual behaviour” (Svetlana V. Doubova, Claudia Infante-Castaneda and Ricardo Perez-Cuevas 2016) this new story is also used to imply or reinforce a degree of responsibility or blame, which in turn detracts from any perceived wrongfulness. As Helena Parkkila and Mervi Aulikki Heikkinen (2018) rightly argue this also fails to recognise the active role played by those who are abused in a way that does not equate agency with blame. As a result, contemporary dramatisations of CSA cannot easily accommodate those victims who deviate from the ideal victim, are sexually knowledgeable and/or exercise a degree of agency (Camille Warrington 2013; Kerry H. Robinson and Cristyn Davies 2008; Margaret Melrose 2013). Not only are they, as Sue Berelowitz et al. (2013) argue, often left unprotected by professionals who do not know how to respond to them, but also left unrepresented in popular drama as programme makers often struggle to show them as innocent and deserving victims. As Helen Wood (2019) suggests, middle-class viewers want to see a victim they can empathise with, a “deserving victim” preferably with a promising future, but because “the working-class girl has already been framed as dirt and therefore not deserving of protection” (Wood 2019, 638), even when she does appear in CSA dramas, her voice is at the same time likely to be rendered silent, as others speak or speak for her. In the remainder of this paper I show how this dominant narrative framework is drawn on to validate some experiences of CSA thorough giving voice to some victims, reinforce a hierarchy of wrongfulness and construct “deserving” and “less deserving” victims in Three Girls and Unforgotten. I also identify a shift in this narrative from assuming harm as a result of being sexually abused to judgements based on an evaluation of the victim, their proximity to an ideal victim, and their perceived future potential, itself related to a middle-class ideal.

Rochdale, three girls and the ‘wrong kind of victim’

As a docudrama Three Girls does not claim to be entirely accurate but it does, as stated on the BBC Studios website, claim to be “based on the true stories of three of the victims of the Rochdale sexual abuse scandal.” This scandal culminated in May 2012 with the jailing of nine men from Rochdale, in northern England for grooming girls with alcohol, drugs and gifts before forcing them to have sex with multiple men. This was not an isolated incident but did receive considerable public and media attention, in part because the abuse was reported to the police over a number of years, but the witnesses were not initially thought to be credible. The majority of those convicted were of Pakistani origin and much of the media coverage characterised the issue as “gangs of Asian men preying on white girls.” There were also suggestions that complaints to social workers and the police were ignored for fear of being called racist. The Rochdale victims were (correctly) reported as having played an active part in the circumstances in which they came to be sexually abused, although to be clear, this should not be equated with responsibility or blame. However, their agency and the choices they made, such as skipping school, going to the local take-away, accepting gifts of food, drink and drugs, accepting lifts/getting in abusers’ cars, were used to present these girls as complicit, or even responsible, at least to some degree for the abuse enacted upon them.

It is these events and characters that have been dramatised in the BBC production Three Girls, with the three girls who feature in the drama thought to be a composite of a number of victims. As the writer, Nicole Taylor, claimed on BBC Breakfast Television “There was no use sanitising it. I wanted to tell the truth” (16/5/2017). Although ostensibly about the grooming of young girls for sex by a group of Asian men Three Girls is also about childhood innocence (itself linked to “purity” and “goodness”), childhood sexuality, class, and the “ideal victim” and how these concepts are woven into a narrative that can be used to position victims of sexual abuse as deserving or undeserving, or even to blame. There are many ways the story of Rochdale could have been told but in drawing on the particular narrative framework of damage and childhood innocence that it did, the programme was restricted as to the story it could tell, and indeed the most “appropriate” victim to tell that story. All three girls were sexually exploited, but their sexual knowledge and activity, their class and family backgrounds, and their (potential) futures all informed how their experiences were interpreted. This, in turn, contributed to how they were presented in the drama and indeed whose story was thought to be worth telling or even “heard” by a television audience. As I discuss below, the decision to give voice primarily to Holly’s experiences resulted in a particular telling that conforms to and reinforces our dominant sexual abuse narrative in a way that featuring Amber or Ruby would not have.

Central to our contemporary CSA narrative is the idea of childhood sexual innocence, which constructs the innocent child as in need of protection and locates the sexually knowing and/or active child outside this category and therefore no longer deserving or in need of protection. In positioning victims who were already sexually active and/or knowledgeable as “bad” this narrative can leave them both unprotected and to blame. This can in turn detract from the wrongfulness of what has been done to them and position them as a corrupting influence or danger to others/those who are still innocent (Woodiwiss 2014). In Three Girls Amber and Ruby are positioned as already sexually knowledgeable and active and, arguably, no longer in need of protection, unlike Holly who is introduced to the viewer as initially sexually innocent and still under the protection of her dad and to a lesser degree her mum. All three girls are victims of sexual abuse by a group of Asian men, but we do not see the beginning of Amber and Ruby’s stories. The drama begins with them already sexually active and introducing Holly to a group of men including Amber’s boyfriend. In contrast, we first see Holly leaving school in her school uniform and going home to her family. To reinforce their levels of sexual knowledge and behaviour, we see the three girls visit a sexual health clinic where Amber, and Ruby, but not Holly, are known to the staff. At the counter Ruby announces,

I want some condoms

and Amber says,

I want to go on the implant

and, when asked by Sarah, one of the sexual health workers, says she is sleeping with “my boyfriend Tariq.” In the same scene we see Sarah introducing herself to Holly who, when asked if she wants anything, says no underpinning her lack of experience. The girls are shown leaving the clinic to go to the takeaway, with Ruby waving a condom and saying “there will be vodka” and Holly following, with the suggestion that she is being led astray, or groomed by other sexually knowledgeable girls. In a later scene with all three girls at one of the takeaways, we see Amber agree to go upstairs with Tariq to have (by implication consensual) sex, whereas Holly goes reluctantly into another room with Daddy, another Asian man, who rapes her. He then hands a distraught Holly a £10 note, saying:

you’re my bitch now. If you cross me, I’ll kill you

leaving us, the viewer, in no doubt that Holly’s experience was not consensual. The scene that follows contrasts the different stories available to Holly and Amber and is used to illustrate Amber’s level of experience. On finding a clearly upset Holly in the bath Amber tells her:

Don’t let them kiss you. I never take my top off or nothing. No way would I let them touch my tits.

This is an ambiguous scene which could be read as an experienced girl “grooming” another by telling her how to act or as an attempt to help her cope with the situation. It shows Amber as having crossed the boundary into adulthood and “easily and already” located outside the protective cloak of childhood innocence juxtaposed with Holly, who is shown naked and childlike in the bath. Although no longer available to Amber, there is a suggestion here that the narrative of sexual innocence and vulnerability, together with the promise of protection, might still be available to Holly. This idea of Amber grooming girls like Holly, resurfaces later when we discover that her experiences of abuse are not part of the prosecution, and she is named on the charge sheet (although not actually prosecuted) for what is said to be her role in procuring other girls.

The dramatisation also raises questions around who can tell their (own) story, who is in a position to have that story listened to, and who has to rely on others to speak for them. The victims of Rochdale were initially left without a story to tell or at least to have that story heard and their voices listened to. When their story was finally told, in Three Girls, it was through a telling that was centred on one girl, Holly, at the expense of the others. The drama not only showed how our dominant CSA narrative is differently available to victims, but also how many victims are denied a voice. As we see in Three Girls this can limit the possibilities for telling other, different stories, and lead to (mis)understanding victims’ experiences. The dominant view of victims of sexual abuse by gangs of Asian men is of working-class girls from chaotic backgrounds who are seen as the antithesis of the “ideal victim” who is deserving of protection. The “ideal victim,” in this narrative is not only sexually innocent but also white and middle-class (Woodiwiss 2014) and it might be that white working-class girls are more likely to be identified as sexually active, not because they are, but because they are more likely to be visible on the streets (unlike middle-class girls with resources to socialise inside). In focussing on Holly, who can be seen as closest to the “right” kind of victim, Three Girls missed an opportunity to challenge this narrative, and highlight the pervasiveness of sexual abuse in the lives of those girls who fall outside this group.

Although the drama clearly shows difficulties and tensions, Holly’s home life is also shown to involve two parents concerned about her wellbeing who look out for her when she comes home from school. We see Holly’s father watching from the window for her to return from school, while her mum warms crumpets in the kitchen. In contrast, Amber and Ruby are introduced to us in someone else’s house, with loud music and drinking, where they are applying make-up ready to go out. This is not a loving family home and there are no parents looking out for them, or warming crumpets for tea. Whilst Holly experiences her dad as controlling the scene demonstrate a degree of concern within the context of ordinary family life. It is Holly who compares this to her friends:’

At me mates there’s no-one standing at the window waiting to kick off

However, this concern goes beyond Holly simply getting home from school safely. There is an attempt to distance the family and in particular Holly from their new surroundings and the people who live there as Holly’s dad tells her she is not “scum” like her friends and warns her:

I don’t want you hanging round with folk from round here.

This sub-plot of danger lurking beyond the (sexually innocent) middle-class family home helps to distance the sexual abuse Holly experiences from her, albeit financially struggling, middle-class family and resonates later with the suggestion by the police that she has been led away and groomed by streetwise Amber. The concept of the “ideal” or “right kind” of victim, linked here to class and sexual innocence, is challenged briefly by Maggie, a detective working on the case. On learning that the criminal prosecution service (CPS) is not going to prosecute Amber’s abusers and might charge Amber with grooming, she says:

So Holly’s the right kind of victim, but Amber isn’t. Isn’t this the kind of attitude to young girls that got us into this mess in the first place?

Whilst the drama appears to reject this suggestion, it is Holly, the “right kind of victim” who is not only central to the prosecutions’ case, but also to the drama.

Although we do not learn how the two sisters are first sexually abused, we are shown their “role” in introducing Holly to their “boyfriends” – the men who go on to sexually abuse her. The drama could have explored their introduction to this abusive world and a time when they too were sexually innocent, and in doing so gone some way to challenging the narrative of an ideal middle-class victim. Instead, they are shown from the beginning to be “at home” in the abusive environment of the streets and takeaways of Rochdale where they are already sexually active. There is even a hint that they were born to it. In contrast, Holly’s story shows her going from the family home to this environment where she is never fully “at home” and, importantly, with her loving family always in the background. The sexual abuse of Amber and Ruby is effectively minimised as they are shown as already sexually active and knowledgeable, and can therefore be seen as outside the category of childhood, and their experiences as outside the category of childhood sexual abuse. If even recognised as abuse, their experiences are thus rendered secondary, not only to the telling of Holly’s story, but also to the other experiences in their “chaotic” lives.

There is a courage exhibited in telling different stories of having been sexually abused but not simply because it involves telling of difficult or traumatic experiences. In telling a story that deviates from the dominant narrative, victims also risk being blamed for the abuse perpetrated against them (Woodiwiss 2014). Whilst this was a risk shown to have been taken by all three girls, it was only the experiences of Holly (seen to have been led astray) and Ruby (shown to have special needs and therefore not held responsible) that were recognised by the CPS as abuse. The reaction to Amber’s story is a stark reminder of that risk for many victims. Amber was shown (to have been seen) as sexually experienced and a corrupting influence on other girls and young women and was not only blamed for her own abuse but held responsible for the part she was said to have played in the abuse of other girls. She was in the end left silenced by the police, the CPS and ultimately the programme makers who might have felt that telling Amber’s story was itself too much of a risk. As Wood (2019) suggests, focussing on Amber, might not have appealed to the middle-class viewer who might have found it harder to empathise with a less than “ideal victim.” However, this in turn helps to reinforce the simplistic view of “undeserving victims” who are at least in part (along with their circumstances and family background—for which we could read inadequate mother) responsible for their own abuse.

Another central feature of our contemporary sexual abuse narrative relates to perceptions of wrongfulness and harm and although there is no straightforward correlation between abuse and perceived harm, that correlation, and the possibility of recovery, is viewed through an intersecting lens of class, sexuality, and ethnicity in which those who are sexually innocent, middle-class and white are seen as having more to be damaged but also as more likely to have the inner strength to recover. Race and ethnicity feature surprisingly little in this drama. The abusers are all shown to be Asian and, apart from some occasional offensive racist language by the victims, the main comment on their ethnicity comes near the end when the Asian barrister tells a community group that although the majority of those involved in grooming are Asian, the majority of those who sexually abuse children are white. There is no comment on the ethnicity of the victims, who are all white, although the inclusion of a non-white victim could have challenged this perception of victims and perpetrators of CSA.

In focussing on Holly, Three Girls can perhaps more easily focus on the experiences and damage of being sexually abused. She is initially seen as sexually innocent and a victim of sexual abuse, but importantly not a victim of her family background and circumstances, and her story is one of recovery. The story of Amber and Ruby is quite different and their innocence is not seen as in need of protection. Not only do they have to share much of their story, but it is one that constructs them as victims of their situation, their “inadequate” single mother and a missing father, as much, if not more, as victims of sexual abuse. There is a suggestion that their sexual abuse is less damaging than their chaotic backgrounds and family circumstances and, whether or not they recover from the abuse, they are shown as less, or possibly unlikely, to recover or move on from their circumstances. There is nothing to suggest they will leave Rochdale or the abusive streets where they grew up, nor do we see them asked about the future. Indeed, both girls are shown to lack the promise of a brighter future, or a self they might return to, to claim that future. Holly’s narrative by contrast is one of progress and hope, drawing on a “survivor discourse” (Worrell 2003), which holds the possibility of healing, recovery and ultimately leaving one’s abuse (and its location) behind, but which requires victims to draw on their own inner strength, as directed by much of the self-help/recovery literature aimed at a largely middle-class readership (Wendy Simonds 1996; Jo Woodiwiss 2013). When asked about her future Holly replies:

I’d like to go to college. I’d like to move away from Rochdale

The drama shows Holly setting out on a path of success as she passes her exams, thinks about going to university, and starts to rebuild her life and that of her daughter. Whilst not suggesting that working-class girls do not or should not go to university, this is, in England at least, a middle-class ideal that Holly aspires to, but not shown to be within Amber’s reach.

The court case itself is a stark reminder of who is seen as a victim and who is not, and who can speak of their abuse and who cannot. Ruby and Holly are both shown as victims and appear as witnesses for the prosecution, but Amber is neither and although her abusers have been charged it is not for crimes committed against her. We see Ruby giving evidence in court supported by her mum and Holly supported by both her parents. Reinforcing the pivotal role of a/her father in the life of an “ideal” victim, Holly is told by her tearful dad:

Seeing everything you’ve done, over all them months in court, finding the strength to do what you did in there, after everything you’ve been through, after everything that’s happened to you—that’s the proudest moment of my life. I’ve got so much respect for you. I take my hat off to you

Whilst Holly is shown surrounded by her proud and supportive family, Amber is alone in a café with just her daughter Yasmin, where she hears about the case second-hand via a newspaper.

Moving on from the court case we are shown a glimpse of what the future might hold for the three girls. Holly’s developing adult story is very different to that of Amber and Ruby. Ruby is pictured at home with her mum with the suggestion that this is where she will stay, shown as no longer a child due to her sexual knowledge but not fully an adult either due to her special needs. Holly is pictured with her loving family, walking in a park bathed in sunshine in a scene that is hopeful and uplifting and carries the suggestion of leaving behind her experiences and the “working class northern town” of her abuse (Wood 2019). This is a scene with a distant horizon and no boundaries, with the sun shining down on Holly and her daughter in which we can imagine her thinking about going to college and a future beyond the streets of Rochdale. It is in stark contrast to the final image of Amber who we see putting away her daughters’ toys, alone and enclosed by the walls of a small space with no distant horizon.

Throughout the drama Holly’s story has been central whilst Amber has been rendered silent. Even in attempts to include the experiences of Amber, and others who do not fit neatly, it is not her voice we hear. Instead, it is Sarah, the nurse from the sexual health clinic, who speaks for them when she says to a Home Affairs select committee:

Those young people do not present as clear-cut victims. They don’t clearly state that “I am being abused.” They won’t easily fit a box that allows a judicial system to easily see that this is a child that is being abused

This is an important message, but it could have been much stronger had Amber been given (more of) a voice throughout.

In using Holly to tell the story, the drama marginalises the experiences of Amber, her sister and others who do not easily conform to the ideal or culturally approved victim. In doing so, it effectively reinforces what it is trying to challenge: the idea of deserving and undeserving victims, within which the consequences for some are seen as less, simply because of where they are positioned in society (and their proximity to or distance from a white middle-class ideal). This idea of victims who do and do not deserve our sympathy, understanding and at times forgiveness is also central to the unfolding narrative of historic sexual abuse in series two of Unforgotten.

Historic CSA, unforgotten and the ‘right’ kind of victim

I now want to look at a different telling of our contemporary CSA story and four very different victims—all adults sexually abused in childhood—as presented in series two of the popular UK TV drama Unforgotten. This is a different kind of programme to Three Girls and the intention is not to compare the two but show how they both draw on a particular narrative of CSA to construct deserving and undeserving victims, moving from the child victims of Three Girls to the now adult victims of Unforgotten. In doing so I explore the implications of our contemporary story for victims as they enter adulthood and trace the emergence of different voices in the telling of this story. The deserving victims presented in Unforgotten can be seen to take up and fulfil the promise offered by Holly’s story at the end of Three Girls: they have been to college and ultimately pursued careers that benefit society.

Unforgotten is based on the idea of investigating a “cold case.” Each series involves a new case investigated by two main characters: Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart a white British female detective and Detective Inspector Sunny Khan a British Asian male detective. Series two starts with the dredging of a canal and the discovery of a body, later identified as David, found sealed and preserved in a suitcase, who we come to learn, was sexually abused as a child and went on to sexually abuse others. We are then introduced to three “flawed” but in many respects “successful” characters—who we later learn were sexually abused in childhood (by different people) and who have left a troubled/troubling past behind them: Colin, a barrister who, with his gay partner is trying to adopt a young girl, has a history of excessive (mis)use of drink and drugs and has ongoing anger, commitment and trust issues; Sara, a teacher, married with two sons, formerly worked in the sex industry and has issues around trust and commitment; Marian, a nurse, with a history of excessive partying and “sleeping around,” who also has ongoing commitment and trust issues.

As the feminist Sharon Lamb says of victims of CSA, there is not only an expectation that they will develop symptoms but for them to be seen as “real” or “genuine victims,” their “suffering must be long and severe” (Lamb 1999, 113). We can see this suffering in the stories of Colin, Marian and Sara. Not only were they sexually innocent when they were first abused, but their suffering is shown to be “long and severe” which, together with their socially worthwhile career choices, enabled them to be presented as genuine victims, deserving of the viewers’ sympathy. This is very different to David who was also sexually abused in childhood, but whose narrative is not designed to elicit viewers’ understanding or sympathy (not that I am suggesting we condone his abusive actions) but rather, ultimately to understand and support his murder.

We begin to see the damage narrative that Unforgotten draws on when we learn about the effects of CSA on David and other victims via an interview between one of the detectives and an old friend of David’s. Here David’s friend suggests that, like other victims, David adopted a particular lifestyle which involved excessive use of drink, drugs and women (by which he means sex workers) to “blot out … the shame and guilt” of having been sexually abused. Interestingly, in this scene it is through the voice of a lay person, not a professional (or a victim), that we learn the effects of sexual abuse, demonstrating the extent to which this narrative has become embedded in the public consciousness. This narrative is developed over the course of the series, along with the voice who articulates it. Following the discovery that David might himself have gone on to sexually abuse others, the narrative is explored by the two main detectives Cassie and Sunny. As the following exchange shows, whilst one does question some aspects of this story, the more authoritative voice, that belonging to Cassie the more senior detective, accepts or validates this public story:

Cassie: he would have been a very messed up human being himself

Sunny: don’t buy that

Cassie: that’s just a fact

Cassie: a person who’s been sexually abused as a child will be very damaged

Sunny: yes, and it doesn’t give them the right to abuse other kids

Victims of CSA, still represented here by David, are constructed as inevitably and overwhelmingly damaged by their abuse. The detectives do not disagree on the “fact” of damage but only on whether it might excuse or explain later actions or behaviours. The sexual abuse story develops over the course of the series as it comes to include not only David but also Colin, Sara and Marion, but is not employed to construct them all as genuine and deserving. By the penultimate episode, at which point David has been established as a sexual abuser, the idea of a corelation between sexual abuse and damage is reinforced through the authoritative voice of Cassie who says of Colin, Sara and Marion:

We now have three suspects who actually have dysfunction consistent with an abusive childhood: drink issues, mental health issues, relationship issues

Only once these three have been established as “genuine” victims are we introduced to the idea that they might have arranged to kill each other’s abuser. We also learn more about the devastating effects of (their) sexual abuse from Cassie who at this point is still the voice of authority as she says of CSA:

It is still affecting people today: catastrophically, it fucks up whole lives

In constructing them as “real” and “deserving” Unforgotten draws on a contemporary damage narrative with its corollary of the healing discourse, in relation to Colin, Sara and Marion, but on an older “cycle of abuse” narrative in relation to David. This older narrative, where victims are stuck in a cycle of being abused and going on to abuse others, is used to help explain David’s actions although (rightly) not to justify or excuse them. However, it does present a character we are not expected to feel compassion for, particularly as it accompanies the harm story which constructs CSA (and therefore David’s actions) as the worst imaginable crime, but one victims should (be able to) leave behind. In simultaneously drawing on both narratives, Unforgotten leaves little room to sympathise with David whilst it reinforces victim’s responsibility to heal and recover, central to much of the self-help/recovery literature (Woodiwiss 2013, 2015). Unforgotten also draws on an additional narrative to reinforce David’s guilt and support another important subplot within Unforgotten. This new narrative, which I have called the Savile narrative, identifies the successful man who does charity/volunteer work, thereby gaining access to children and young people, as a (potential) sex offender and can itself be used to suggest or reinforce guilt. It also reinforces gendered notions of caring—wherein men who “care,” particularly for young children, are “suspect.” Like Jimmy Savile,¹ David gained access to children and young people to abuse through his charity work. These narratives also help to distance the crimes of David and Savile, enabling us, the viewer, to see them as something that happened in the past or at least the past as a time when they were not dealt with adequately. Indeed, as one character (a scout master) says of our contemporary response to sexual abuse:

It’s changed, we’ve changed. People like that don’t slip through the net anymore

Establishing that CSA is now properly dealt with, perhaps also allows the viewer to sympathise with the actions of Colin, Marian and Sara without condoning future similar vigilantism.

Throughout most of the series we learn about CSA and its consequences from friends of the victims and detectives, rather than from the victims themselves, but this changes as Colin’s “expert” voice takes over from Cassie to give a powerful account of what it (“really”) means to be a victim of CSA. This idea of the expert through experience, introduced through Colin’s voice, has been gaining dominance over the last twenty years or so. It has been usefully employed within social work, although not without problems (Hugh Mclaughlin 2009), to acknowledge the value and knowledge accrued through people’s experiences, and reflects the rise of victim/survivor biographies, which draw on a similar narrative framework to Unforgotten. Whilst not suggesting we should ignore victims’ stories we do need to recognise that, like any telling, they are constrained by the circumstances of and reasons for their telling. Reflecting statistics that show the vast majority of victims are female the voice of victims has traditionally been female. In Unforgotten however, it is Colin, the “genuine” male victim, who tells Cassie, and therefore the viewer, the (devastating) consequences of CSA:

Worse than the physical damage is the damage he did to me as a person because that first time he changed me instantly and forever. The drinking, the rage, the suicide attempts, the fighting, the manic working, the endless exhausting visceral rage that I feel every day of my life. That I feel, that I feel right at this moment having to explain this to you. This is all because of him. (Colin)

The accounts of Cassie and Colin do not differ significantly but giving this voice to Colin reflects the shift from the authoritative voice (a senior police officer) to the expert victim voice (Colin). It also reflects the more powerful position occupied by Colin, who not only speaks for Marian and Sara, but for all victims.

Unforgotten offers a more nuanced depiction of victims of CSA than is often found in factual/news programmes and Colin presents a powerful account of the effects of CSA, but it is also a simplistic one that is itself limited by our contemporary CSA narrative. There are many factors, at the time and in the months and years that follow, that mediate the effects of CSA on victims’ lives (Jamie L. Small 2019) but Colin’s account, told by his adult self looking back, suggests the consequences for him, and by implication all victims, were instant and therefore not affected by these. Colin’s view is not opened up for discussion but simply presented and left unquestioned, but will itself inform how victims like Colin will, and indeed can, interpret what happened to them.

Colin identifies the overwhelming damage he believes he experienced as a result of being abused, but this also reflects the value placed on his life. It is no coincidence that the three “genuine” victims lead worthwhile lives that contribute to society. Indeed, as the writer Chris Lang says ‘their professions were chosen very specifically … We have a nurse helping very sick patients, a teacher dedicated to troubled kids, a barrister doing a lot of pro bono work. These are caring people.” (Chris Lang 2017 in interview in Huffpost) who have chosen worthwhile professions. Their lives show evidence of damage but, like Holly in Three Girls, their stories draw on a survivor discourse (Worrell 2003), which offers the possibility of healing, recovery and ultimately leaving their abuse behind. Paradoxically, given the emphasis on overwhelming damage, it is the leaving behind of this damage that ultimately renders Colin, Sara and Marion (along with Holly) deserving of our, the viewers, sympathy. In doing so they offer the viewer hope and, we might argue, permission to move on themselves when the credits roll. Perhaps David’s greatest crime (like Amber and Ruby) was that he failed to do this, and it is David who, tied to an older story of abuse, is judged in the final episode—not Colin, Sara and Marion.

Perceptions of damage are central to our contemporary CSA narrative but Unforgotten goes further and, again through Colin’s voice, links this to judgement:

So you might put me in prison but let me tell you this: you can’t judge me unless you’ve had it done to you. I won’t ever ever let anyone judge me for what I did—and what happened to Sara and Marion was much worse. (Colin)

Presenting Colin as an expert through experience also enables Unforgotten to claim authenticity and validity without acknowledging the story they tell, can only ever be partial. Furthermore, we are told it is only through experiencing CSA that someone (others) can understand and (therefore) be in a position to judge the actions victims take that follow from being abused. This raises important questions around who can speak for others, whether experience produces more valid knowledge, and whose knowledge or story is seen as more legitimate.

However, Colin, along with Sarah and Marian, is not the only victim and perhaps we should also ask if we should see their experiences of CSA, as mitigating factors and therefore not judge (or prosecute) their actions—even when they include murder? Before addressing that question, it is worth looking at the words and actions of the two detectives:

Sunny: Do Colin, Sara and Marian need to be deterred from committing murder again?

Cassie: No

Sunny: So, do they need to be rehabilitated? For the last 20 years at least they’ve all been very valuable members of society which means in the end it pretty much comes down to punishment. Do Colin, Sara and Marian need to be punished?

Cassie: And that’s it you see because for me I think their whole lives have been one long indiscriminately brutal punishment and I just can’t see why we would punish them further. I can’t see who would benefit.

Sunny: No, no nor can I

The series effectively ends with this exchange, with the detectives deciding not to prosecute Colin, Sara and Marian even though they know that each of them has committed premeditated murder against someone they were told was a sexual abuser. This decision is not discussed or offered up to the viewer for consideration, but presented as an acceptable outcome. Not only are these three shown to be genuine victims who have suffered enough - their whole lives have been one long indiscriminately brutal punishment - but this is presented as justification for murder and their victims presented as acceptable targets—but is it and are they? Donaghy (2017) in The Guardian newspaper calls this “a brave close to this heartbreaking tale of abuse, crime and punishment” - but is it?

We should remember that one of those murdered (David), was also a victim of CSA, which raises the question: what is the difference between David and Colin, Sara and Marion? The obvious difference is that David went on to sexually abuse others, whereas they did not, but they did each go on to commit premeditated murder. We might also say that David abused innocent children whereas the other three killed people who were not innocent—they were men who sexually abused children and therefore, arguably, acceptable targets. They were certainly presented as such within Unforgotten, reinforcing a hierarchy of offenders and offences with CSA both the worst thing that can happen to someone and the worst thing someone can do—worse even than murder. CSA is a crime that cannot be forgiven or excused but murder, Unforgotten tells us, can be under certain circumstances. The other obvious difference is that Colin, Sara and Marian’s is a middle-class narrative (like Holly’s in Three Girls) which, unlike David’s, promises a future beyond their abuse. It might be that no one helped David to heal, but he (like Amber in Three Girls) did not help himself either and in failing to do so his story can also be seen as a warning. In our increasingly therapeutic culture, where we are all responsible for our own happiness and well-being, irrespective of what has happened or been done to us, (Woodiwiss 2013, 2015) perhaps this was David’s greatest crime.

Conclusion

This paper focuses on the dramatisation of sexual abuse in England, but the danger of any singular story is not limited to England or to CSA, as it delimits the possibilities for telling, or even recognising, experiences that do not fit (Woodiwiss 2014, 2017). My intention is not to suggest that stories of CSA and its victims should not be featured in popular drama, or that we should ignore the sexual abuse suffered by some groups. On the contrary, I believe we need more stories of CSA but, as Sally R. Munt argued:

We need more reflection on how victims become recognised, and for what purpose; we need to understand more critically how victimhood narratives and tropes are deployed in popular culture (Sally R. Munt 2016, 2).

The victimhood narratives deployed in Three Girls and Unforgotten reinforce our contemporary CSA story but, as Boyle argues, “television may also contribute towards finding solutions and new ways of telling these stories [of sexual abuse]” (Boyle 2018, 401). Both Three Girls and Unforgotten, in drawing on real life events, using the voices of victims, and/or working with specialist organisations, have found “new ways of telling these stories” but in continuing to draw on a singular narrative they reinforce the concept of an ideal or “genuine” victim and a hierarchy of harm, itself increasingly informed by how much a victim is (or can be) harmed. This hierarchy, which is played out and reinforced across the two dramas, itself reflects the position of middle-class white males at the top and working-class, non-white females at the bottom—sometimes so far at the bottom to be (rendered) invisible, their stories untold.

Popular drama is an excellent way of raising important social issues and although Three Girls and Unforgotten did raise the issue of CSA, albeit in different ways, in relying on a singular story, both dramas missed an opportunity to tell different stories by different victims and thereby challenge both the construction of the ideal victim and the view that not all victims are equally deserving, whether or not they are (seen to have been) “damaged.” This might, as Woods suggests, partly reflect the middle-class backgrounds and ideals of programme makers and their middle-class viewers who want a victim they can empathise with (Wood 2019). This is a deserving victim but also a victim who can ultimately leave their abuse behind and align themselves with middle-class values and aspirations—and thus enable the viewer to also leave behind the abuse when they turn off the television.

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Notes on contributors

Jo Woodiwiss

Jo Woodiwiss Reader in Sociology, is Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Conflict, Identity and Diversity at the University of Huddersfield, UK. Jo’s research explores (historic) childhood sexual abuse, childhood sexuality, LGBT+ young people, and their intersections with gender and/or sexuality. She is particularly interested in how these are constructed in/constrained by dominant narratives and media representations. She is the author of Contesting stories of childhood sexual abuse (Woodiwiss 2009) and co-editor of Feminist narrative research (Woodiwiss 2017).

Notes

1. Jimmy Savile was a well-known English DJ, television and radio personality. Following his death, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse were made against him, leading the police to conclude that he had possibly been one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.