BBC drama on Rochdale sex abuse scandal

The BBC is making a TV drama based on the true story of the victims of the Rochdale sex abuse scandal.

Maxine Peake, who starred in Shameless and played Myra Hindley in the moors murders film See No Evil, is set to play a main role in the show, along with fellow TV star Lesley Sharp.

The two actresses will play women who listen to the victims after years of them being ignored by the authorities.

The BBC said the drama would focus on the abuse of the girls and how they were “let down” by the system, not on the fact that all the perpetrators were men of the same ethnic origin.

Writer of the show Nicole Taylor told The Guardian newspaper: “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”.

Nicole Taylor also wrote The C Word starring Sheridan Smith, the three-part drama is produced by the team behind Five Daughters, the multi-award winning BBC drama about the murder of five women in Ipswich in 2006.

Nazir Afzal, a consultant on the drama who is a former chief crown prosecutor for the North West, has described the show as both “ground-breaking” and “heartbreaking.”

Other stars to appear in the show include former Emmerdale actress Lisa Reilly and Jill Halfpenny from Coronation Street.