Sara Rowbotham is a local councillor, community leader and former health worker in

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

, notable for helping to expose the child sex abuse ring there. She has served as Deputy leader of

Rochdale Borough Council Rochdale Borough Council is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of ten in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England ...

since 2018, and was first elected to represent North Middleton in

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

. She is also the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing. She is a member of the Labour Party. Rowbotham was born in

Middleton, Greater Manchester Middleton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, on the River Irk southwest of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester city centre. Middleton had a population of 42,972 at the 2011 Census. It lies on the ...

. Both her parents were socialists. Between 2004 and 2014, she worked for the Rochdale Crisis Intervention Team for the NHS, which is when she uncovered the Rochdale child sex abuse ring and helped bring the perpetrators to court. As a front line sexual health worker, who led the NHS crisis team, she made 181 referrals detailing the abuse and sexual grooming of young people between 2005 and 2011. In 2012, she told the Rochdale inquiry her bosses had ignored scores of warnings that girls were being groomed and sexually exploited. She was made redundant two years later, in 2014. She was portrayed in '' Three Girls'', a BBC mini-series about the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, by actress

Maxine Peake Maxine Peake (born 14 July 1974) is an English actress and narrator. She is known for her roles as Twinkle in the BBC One sitcom '' dinnerladies'' (1998–2000), Veronica Ball in the hit Channel 4 comedy drama '' Shameless'' (2004–2007), Mart ...

. Following the screening in mid-May 2017, a petition was started at

Change.org Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...

calling for her to be formally recognized for her services to Rochdale community. By late May, it had gathered more than 275,000 signatures. In May 2017, she featured on an episode of ''

First Dates ''First Dates'' is a British reality television programme that has aired on Channel 4 since 20 June 2013. The programme has been narrated by Brian Protheroe since 2015. Production The programme was filmed at the Paternoster Chop House restaur ...

''. She received a Special Recognition at the 2018 NHS Heroes Awards, and was made an honorary member of the Council of the

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is a British child protection charity. History Victorian era On a trip to New York in 1881, Liverpudlian businessman Thomas Agnew was inspired by a visit to the New Yor ...

(NSPCC) in October 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowbotham, Sara Living people Labour Party (UK) councillors Councillors in Greater Manchester People from Rochdale Year of birth missing (living people) Women councillors in England