Nicola Thorp, an actor, writer and broadcaster, who grew up in the town, describes Charlene’s disappearance, considered to be murder, as “a wound for Blackpool”.In a new podcast, she has set out to clear up some of the speculation, and expose how Charlene was repeatedly failed by those around her.
'Those around her' not, of course, to include those amazing immigrants without which our Northern towns would remain un-enriched, naturally.
There were other elements of Charlene’s story that appalled her. The persistent racist narrative around the two Middle Eastern men who stood trial (they would go on to be awarded compensation for false imprisonment).
It’s racist now to not want Third Worlders to harass and groom young girls?
That far-right antagonists continue to capitalise on the disappearance of Charlene.
Yes, the real problem with young girls mysteriously disapppearing is not the heartache for the family, but the ammunition it gives right wingers 🙄
And worst, that there has been no justice.
That’s pretty common in the UK these days.
Thorp, known for her role as Nicola Rubinstein on Coronation Street, has a history of campaigning for women’s rights.If she was to work on something about Charlene Downes, she thought, it had to have a campaigning edge.
Has she? One of the biggest issues of women’s rights these days is keeping deranged men in womanface out of female only spaces, yet I can’t find anything from her on this subject…
It took three years to put the eight-part podcast together. Her research would bring her into contact with Charlene’s family (with some deeply uncomfortable conversations), potential new leads, police, far-right activists and an intense Facebook group intent on uncovering the truth for Charlene, from which she would later be banned.
Yikes! That says quite a bit, doesn’t it, Reader?
Thorp and Charlene were similar in some ways – the same age, with a shared love of the boyband Westlife – but had very different lives. How much did class play into the investigation? “[It was] everything,” says Thorp, when we speak at the Guardian’s offices. “Misogyny and class is what this entire story really is about – and race, in the case of the perpetrators of some of the grooming.”
Good old ‘Guardian’, never missing a chance to hit their single notes.
A lot has been made, not unjustifiably, of the grooming that Charlene, among other girls in Blackpool, is said to have been a victim of by a group of takeaway workers, who are mostly of Asian heritage, but Thorp points out: “The white men who abused Charlene have not been widely reported on. They’re ignored.” This includes a man, Ray Munro, who was staying with the family at the time of Charlene’s disappearance and was about to be sentenced for child sex offences. (Charlene’s parents have said they didn’t know Munro was a sex offender at the time.)
You can see why her fellow Facebook sleuths threw her out....
The far right’s resurgence frightens her. Last year, just a few weeks before their Blackpool wedding, her then-fiance, the actor Nikesh Patel, with whom she has a baby daughter and who is of Indian heritage, drove Thorp to cover one of a number of riots that had broken out following the murders of three children in Southport, and the misinformation about the attacker being a Muslim asylum seeker. A protester spotted Patel in the car and yelled at him to get out; he managed to lock the doors and drive away.
Ah.
There have been other incidents. She was picked up by a taxi recently, “and got told that I’m lucky that I live in an area where there aren’t many Asians. I said, ‘Well, there’s two in my house.’ He just came out with it. Racism has become emboldened in the UK.” She is scared, she says. “I think we should all be.”
But not of the grooming and killing of young girls, clearly. Just of people being less than welcoming of the wonderful diversity.
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