The Rotherham victim of a paedophile clown has spoken out for the first time after he raped and groomed her as a child. The victim has waived her legal anonymity to tell her story
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00:00 I'm Chloe Birkin and I'm in Rotherham.
00:03 I was 12 years old when I met him.
00:09 It was known to me through family.
00:14 He was a clown, he was a child's entertainer.
00:20 He worked with young children around birthday parties and school events.
00:29 He basically just grabbed my hand and put it onto his penis.
00:35 He never said anything to me and that's how it first started, the first time.
00:43 It went on for three years until just before I was 16.
00:50 I felt like I was grown up, like it was a normal relationship.
00:57 We went out together, we'd walk around town hand in hand.
01:02 He made me feel like we were together, like he loved me.
01:07 Lots of my friends knew, he wasn't concerned about them knowing.
01:18 Family wasn't aware at that time.
01:22 It wasn't until later on that it became knowledgeable to everyone else.
01:27 But yeah, my friends all knew at the time.
01:30 My oldest daughter turned 12 and I looked at her and thought, that's how old I was at the time.
01:41 I couldn't imagine her going through something the same.
01:45 He was still out there, he could have been doing it to anyone else.
01:49 I'd have felt partly to blame for that if he had done it to somebody else.
01:55 I could have put a stop to that.
01:57 It was difficult giving evidence. I did stand in court to give evidence.
02:05 I wanted to face him, I wanted to see him try and give his evidence.
02:12 I wanted to be in there for the verdict.
02:16 It was difficult but I had a lot of support behind me to go through that.
02:24 We got the outcome we wanted in the end.
02:28 Don't hide it, speak out. There will always be support there for you.
02:35 The police will believe you.
02:37 You will have support there all the way through court, all the way through the process.
02:42 It's not easy but you'll get there in the end and once you see him behind bars, it's worth it.
02:49 That's it.
02:49 (water trickling)