[[Lesley Sharp]]
[[Molly Windsor]]
[[Ria Zmitrowicz]]
[[Liv Hill]]
[[Ace Bhatti]]
[[Paul Kaye]]
[[Jill Halfpenny]]
Bo Bragason
[[Lisa Riley]]"},"opentheme":{"wt":""},"endtheme":{"wt":""},"composer":{"wt":"[[Natalie Holt]]"},"country":{"wt":"[[United Kingdom]]"},"language":{"wt":"English"},"num_series":{"wt":"1"},"num_episodes":{"wt":"3"},"list_episodes":{"wt":"#Episodes"},"executive_producer":{"wt":"Lucy Richer
Hilary Salmon
Susan Hogg"},"producer":{"wt":"Simon Lewis"},"editor":{"wt":"Úna Ní Dhonghaíle"},"location":{"wt":""},"cinematography":{"wt":"Matt Gray BSC"},"camera":{"wt":""},"runtime":{"wt":"60 minutes"},"company":{"wt":"[[BBC Studios]] and [[Studio Lambert]]"},"channel":{"wt":"[[BBC One]]"},"first_aired":{"wt":"{{start date|2017|5|16|df=yes}}"},"last_aired":{"wt":"{{end date|2017|5|18|df=yes}}"}},"i":0}}]}" id="mwBw"> British TV series or program
Three Girls | |
---|---|
Genre | True crime |
Written by | Nicole Taylor |
Directed by | Philippa Lowthorpe |
Starring | Maxine Peake Lesley Sharp Molly Windsor Ria Zmitrowicz Liv Hill Ace Bhatti Paul Kaye Jill Halfpenny Bo Bragason Lisa Riley |
Composer | Natalie Holt |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 3 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers | Lucy Richer Hilary Salmon Susan Hogg |
Producer | Simon Lewis |
Cinematography | Matt Gray BSC |
Editor | Úna Ní Dhonghaíle |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Production companies | BBC Studios and Studio Lambert |
Original release | |
Network | BBC One |
Release | 16 May – 18 May 2017 |
Three Girls is a three-part British television drama series, written by screenwriter Nicole Taylor, and directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, broadcast on three consecutive nights between 16 and 18 May 2017 on BBC One. [1] A co-production between BBC Studios and Studio Lambert, the series is a dramatised version of the events surrounding the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, and describes how the authorities failed to investigate allegations of rape because the victims were perceived as unreliable witnesses, and the local authorities didn’t investigate through fear of being accused of racism because of the ethnicity of the perpetrators. [2]
Three Girls drew a strong viewing audience upon its first broadcast, with 8.24 million viewers for episode one, 7.88 million for episode two and 8.19 million for episode three. [3] The series was released on DVD in Region 2 on 8 January 2018. [4]
A BBC documentary on the case, The Betrayed Girls, was broadcast on 3 July 2017 as a follow-up to the drama. [5]
The story is told from the viewpoint of three of the victims: fourteen-year-old Holly Winshaw (Molly Windsor), sixteen-year-old Amber Bowen (Ria Zmitrowicz) and her younger sister Ruby (Liv Hill); although the focus later shifts to sexual health worker Sara Rowbotham (Maxine Peake), the main whistleblower who drew attention to the case after repeated pleas for help from social services and the police fell on deaf ears.
DC Margaret Oliver (Lesley Sharp), the lead investigator on the case, manages to gain the support of her superior officer, Sandy Guthrie (Jason Hughes) to instigate a full-blown investigation. However, despite significant evidence, the CPS decided to drop the case because of an “unrealistic prospect of conviction”. After Margaret convinces Amber Bowen to testify against her former boyfriend, Tariq (Wasim Zakir), the case is re-opened by recently appointed public prosecutor Nazir Afzal (Ace Bhatti), who with the assistance of the police and the victims involved, manages to secure convictions against ten men involved in the ring. [6]
Rowbotham, Oliver and Afzal all acted as consultants on the series. [7]
Episode | Title | Written by | Directed by | Viewers (millions) [8] | Original airdate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Episode 1" | Nicole Taylor | Philippa Lowthorpe | 8.24 | 16 May 2017 |
2 | "Episode 2" | Nicole Taylor | Philippa Lowthorpe | 7.88 | 17 May 2017 |
3 | "Episode 3" | Nicole Taylor | Philippa Lowthorpe | 8.19 | 18 May 2017 |
In June 2017, a terrorist attack was launched against mosque-goers in Finsbury Park. The attacker, Darren Osborne, used a van to run over Muslim pedestrians, killing one man and injuring several others. In the course of the trial, it was remarked that Osborne developed an obsession with Muslims after watching Three Girls. [9]
Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | WFTV Awards | The Deluxe Director Award | Philippa Lowthorpe | Won | [10] |
Festival de la Fiction TV Awards | Jury Special Prize for European Fiction | Three Girls | Won | ||
Royal Television Society Craft & Design Awards | Director - Drama | Philippa Lowthorpe | Nominated | [11] | |
Editing - Drama | Úna Ní Dhonghaíle | Won | |||
Music - Original Score | Natalie Holt | Nominated | |||
Photography - Drama & Comedy | Matt Gray | Won | |||
2018 | British Academy Television Awards | Best Mini-Series | Three Girls | Won | [12] |
Best Actress | Molly Windsor | Won | |||
Best Supporting Actress | Liv Hill | Nominated | |||
British Academy Television Craft Awards | Best Director: Fiction | Philippa Lowthorpe | Won | [13] | |
Best Writer: Drama | Nicole Tyler | Won | |||
Best Editing: Fiction | Úna Ní Dhonghaíle | Won | |||
Irish Film & Television Awards | Editing | Úna Ní Dhonghaíle | Won | [14] | |
RTS Programme Awards - West of England | Best Television Drama | Three Girls | Won | [15] | |
Best Director Drama | Philippa Lowthorpe | Won | |||
Royal Television Society Programme Awards | Mini-Series | Three Girls | Won | [16] | |
Writer Award - Drama | Nicole Taylor | Won | |||
Breakthrough Award - On Screen | Molly Windsor | Nominated | |||
Broadcasting Press Guild | Best Single Drama/Mini-series | Three Girls | Won | [17] | |
UK Broadcast Awards | Best Drama Series or Serial | Three Girls | Won | [18] | |
Drama was introduced to Britain from Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose.
Jill Halfpenny is an English actress who first garnered attention playing Nicola Dobson in the coming-of-age BBC drama series Byker Grove (1989–1992). She became more widely known for her roles as Rebecca Hopkins on the ITV soap opera Coronation Street (1999–2000), Kate Mitchell on the BBC soap opera EastEnders (2002–2005), and Izzie Redpath in Waterloo Road (2006–2007). Her other notable credits include Babylon (2014), In the Club (2014–2016), Humans (2015), Three Girls (2017), Liar (2017–2020), Dark Money (2019), The Drowning (2021), and The Long Shadow (2023). She won the second series of the television dance contest Strictly Come Dancing in 2004.
Molly Windsor is an English actress. Her breakthrough role was in the 2009 Channel 4 television film The Unloved, and she has appeared in Oranges and Sunshine (2010) and The Runaways (2019). She is best known for her performance in the 2017 BBC miniseries Three Girls, for which she won the 2018 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress; in 2017, she was also named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit.
The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved underage teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child in May 2012. This resulted in Greater Manchester Police launching Operation Doublet and other operations to investigate further claims of abuse. As of January 2024 a total of 42 men had been convicted resulting in jail sentences totalling 432 years. Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the initial police investigation. The men were British Pakistanis, which led to discussion on whether the failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities' fear of being accused of racial prejudice. The girls were mainly White British.
The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal consists of the organised child sexual abuse that occurred in the town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Northern England from the late 1980s until 2013 and the failure of local authorities to act on reports of the abuse throughout most of that period. Researcher Angie Heal, who was hired by local officials and warned them about child exploitation occurring between 2002 and 2007, has since described it as the "biggest child protection scandal in UK history", with one report estimating that 1,400 girls were abused by "grooming gangs". Evidence of the abuse was first noted in the early 1990s, when care home managers investigated reports that children in their care were being picked up by taxi drivers. From at least 2001, multiple reports passed names of alleged perpetrators, several from one family, to the police and Rotherham Council. The first group conviction took place in 2010, when five British-Pakistani men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 12–16. From January 2011 Andrew Norfolk of The Times pressed the issue, reporting in 2012 that the abuse in the town was widespread and that the police and council had known about it for over ten years.
Nazir Afzal is a British solicitor and former prosecutor within the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom has been reported in the country throughout its history. In about 90% of cases the abuser is a person known to the child. However, cases during the second half of the twentieth century, involving religious institutions, schools, popular entertainers, politicians, military personnel, and other officials, have been revealed and widely publicised since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Child sexual abuse rings in numerous towns and cities across the UK have also drawn considerable attention.
Philippa Lowthorpe is an English film and television director. She was awarded the Deluxe Director Award at the WFTV Film and Television Awards for the miniseries Three Girls. She recently directed episodes of the second season of The Crown and the 2020 film Misbehaviour.
Barry Ward is an Irish actor. He began his career as a child actor in the RTÉ/BBC series Family (1994) and Plotlands (1997), and the film Sunburn (1999). His films since include Jimmy's Hall, Blood Cells, Extra Ordinary (2019), and Dating Amber (2020), the latter of which won him an IFTA.
Zaira Wasim is an Indian former actress who worked in Hindi films. The recipient of numerous accolades, including a Filmfare Award and a National Film Award, Wasim was honoured with the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in 2017.
On 19 June 2017, an Islamophobic terrorist attack occurred in Finsbury Park, London, England, when a van was intentionally driven into a crowd of Muslim pedestrians near the Muslim Welfare House, 100 yards (90 m) from the Finsbury Park Mosque, resulting in the death of a man and 11 injuries. The attack was found to be motivated by Islamophobia.
Sara Rowbotham is a local councillor, community leader and former health worker in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, notable for helping to expose the child sex abuse ring there. She has served as Deputy leader of Rochdale Borough Council since 2018, and was first elected to represent North Middleton in 2015. She is also the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing. She is a member of the Labour Party.
Ria Zmitrowicz is a British actress. She is known for her work in theatre, earning WhatOnStage and Manchester Theatre Award nominations, and her role in the BBC drama Three Girls (2017).
Fionn O'Shea is an Irish actor. He starred in the films Handsome Devil (2016) and Dating Amber (2020). On television, he is known for his roles in the Channel 4 sitcom Hang Ups (2018) and the BBC Three & Hulu miniseries Normal People (2020).
Margaret Oliver is an English former Detective Constable with the Greater Manchester Police. She is known as a whistleblower for exposing the poor handling of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring case by her own force.
The Kohistan video case is an honour killing case that took place in May 2012 in Palas Valley, Kohistan, Pakistan. It involved the honour killing of up to five girls, of whom a video had emerged on the internet. The video featured a boy dancing while four girls clapped and sang along.
Úna Ní Dhonghaíle is an Irish film editor, who has worked on cinema and television projects.
Niamh Algar is an Irish actress. She is known for winning Best Actress in a Leading Role - TV Drama at the 2020 IFTA Film & Drama Awards for her performance in The Virtues. Other roles include MotherFatherSon, Raised by Wolves and Pure. In 2021, she appeared in Wrath of Man and Censor. For her role in Calm with Horses, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
The 17th Irish Film & Television Academy Awards took place in July 2021. The ceremony honoured Irish films and television drama released between 1 February 2020 and 31 May 2021.
Lola Petticrew is a Northern Irish actor. Petticrew's films include A Bump Along the Way (2019), Dating Amber (2020), and Tuesday (2023). On television, Petticrew is known for their roles in Bloodlands (2021–) and Three Families (2021) on BBC One.