Filming begins this week on a new BBC One drama, based on the true stories of victims of grooming and sexual abuse in Rochdale.
Three Girls will examine the way the girls were groomed, how they were ignored by the authorities and how, eventually, their story came out.
It’s being made by BBC Studios, in association with Studio Lambert and stars Maxine Peake (Silk, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Lesley Sharp (Scott And Bailey, Capital) as the two women who were instrumental in getting the girls’ voices heard.
They will star alongside Paul Kaye, Lisa Riley and Jill Halfpenny.
“BBC One has the ability to tell challenging and timely stories of national significance. The team behind the award-winning Five Daughters have spent three years talking to the girls, unravelling the shocking scale of abuse, the horror of what they’ve been through and the enormous courage it’s taken for them to speak out,” said Charlotte Moore, controller BBC TV Channels and iPlayer.
It has been written by Nicole Taylor (The C Word), is directed by Philippa Lowthorpe (Call The Midwife, Jamaica Inn), and produced by Simon Lewis.
“Whatever I thought I knew about what had happened in Rochdale, I knew nothing until I met the girls and their families. Listening to them was the beginning of understanding – not just of the terrible suffering they experienced, but of the courage it took to persist and persist over years, in telling authorities who didn’t want to know, and ultimately participate in the court proceedings that brought justice,” added Taylor.
The 3 x 60 minute drama is being made with the full cooperation of the victims and their families.
