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‘Three Girls’ is the true story of the 2012 Rochdale Grooming case, in which 9 men were successfully prosecuted for offences including rape, trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.

It was the first case of its kind to come to national attention and the first successful prosecution for sex trafficking within the UK. The story has been widely covered in the press, most notably by Andrew Norfolk in The Times, and there exists a huge amount of information in the public domain.

As we were researching the story grew in national significance as other arrests were made and it became clear that there were many cases throughout the country with thousands of victims. It’s a story that has shocked the nation and changed the way that social services and police think about and handle cases of child sexual exploitation.

If so much is known and has been covered already by the media why tell this story again as a drama? What could possibly be more powerful than the documentary truth? It’s a good question and one that’s not always easy to answer.

There are many true stories that an audience might be interested in reliving through drama but the ones that really resonate and arguably deserve to be made are those which can change an audience’s perception of the victims because, for all the media noise, their true voices haven’t yet been heard.

The way in which Jimmy McGovern’s ‘Hillsborough’ changed the perception of the behaviour of Liverpool football fans is a good example. Or the way in which the audience was put into the shoes of the girls hunted down by the Ipswich serial killer in ‘Five Daughters’.

Similarly the voices of the children abused and exploited in Rochdale had not been heard. Who were these young girls, why were they out on their own day and night, how did they get to know these men in the first place and how could they have been raped repeatedly without anyone in authority putting a stop to it? Crucially how did they feel while all this was happening to them and how do they feel now?

The team behind ‘Three Girls’ has an impressive track record in producing powerful factual drama.

Executive Producer Sue Hogg, producer Simon Lewis and director Philippa Lowthorpe were also responsible for ‘Five Daughters’. Writer Nicole Taylor wrote the screenplay to ‘The C Word’ which Sue and Simon also produced.

This was a close knit team that had the commitment to stay the course over the four year period it took to research, write and produce the three hour series. Gaining the trust of the three girls that the drama focuses on was of course key.

Simon, Nicole and later Philippa carried out multiple interviews with the girls and their families in an effort to get to know them and relive with them their experiences from four years previously. The pace and timing of the interviews had to be dictated by the girls themselves for whom talking about what happened was both painful and cathartic.

At the same time for Nicole and Philippa it was important for the veracity of the drama that they retained some distance on what they were being told. Every experience described by the girls needed to be backed up by at least one other source.

As well as the volume of information in the public domain especially from the trial itself the team also had invaluable input from the two whistle-blowers at the heart of the story; Sara Rowbotham who worked for the NHS as a sexual health worker and Maggie Oliver, a police constable with Greater Manchester Police. These two women worked tirelessly to change the perception of these young girls in the eyes of the authorities just as we have tried to do for audiences through the drama.

A perception that the girls were simply displaying a lifestyle choice and didn’t need or want protection. Never mind that they were 13, 14, 15 years old at the time and had such low self-esteem that free chips and alcohol would turn a grubby room at the back of a kebab shop into the equivalent of a clubhouse.

Sara and Maggie have remained close to the girls and were key in helping us gain their trust and support them emotionally at every stage. The real girls and their families, and our other contributors, were involved throughout the process from beginning to end, including being on hand during filming and post production for their advice. We couldn’t possibly have done it without them.

Hilary Salmon is 主播大秀 Studios’ Head of Drama, England

• Three Girls will be available to watch on from Saturday 16 December, 2017
•  Three Girls at 9pm on Tuesday 16 May 2017 on 主播大秀 One
• Three Girls is a 主播大秀 Studios production in association with Studio Lambert