When I heard the BBC was interested in dramatising the story of the Rochdale grooming scandal, one overriding question gnawed away at me. How could they do it justice? As challenging subject matter goes, this was off the Richter scale. The sickening abuse that gangs of men inflicted on young girls certainly wouldn’t make comfortable viewing.

But I was reminded that Cathy Come Home didn’t make comfortable viewing either. Ken Loach’s seminal 1966 drama shocked the nation, beaming the harsh reality of homelessness into the nation’s living rooms. The BBC has a long history of making drama that reflects and challenges modern Britain and Three Girls very much falls into that category.

After meeting scriptwriter Nicole Taylor, I was assured the team behind Three Girls were equally ambitious. They wanted to shed light on a rapidly developing 21st-century crime, show the real story behind the headlines and raise awareness of a growing national scandal.

In doing this, they have managed to powerfully portray a world of desperately vulnerable teenagers who are hidden from view and don’t have a voice. The three girls at the centre of the drama could come from estates all over the country and they’re not fictional characters. They’re real people still at risk of being preyed upon by criminal gangs that are growing in confidence.

As Rochdale’s crisis intervention team coordinator from 2003 to 2014, I had a perfect view of how this criminal activity was beginning to emerge from the shadows. Working for a specialist sexual health support service advising young people vulnerable to child sexual exploitation, I was based in the town centre and my role was to reach out to young girls. Because of our nonjudgmental approach, we were able to win their trust in a way that police and social services could not. The girls knew we weren’t there to try to get evidence from them – we were there to help and support them. As a result, our centre became something of a refuge where teenagers would pop by for a brew and a chat.

Maxine Peake, left, as Sara Rowbotham in Three Girls. Photograph: Sophie Mutevelian/BBC

If this service wasn’t available, half the evidence that led to mass convictions would never have come to light. The girls didn’t trust police or social services to help them and I quickly found out why they felt this way, as no one wanted to listen to them.

Once I began to see the magnitude of the problem, I went out of my way to tell everyone about it. But it seemed the scale of this crime was something people just couldn’t face up to. My calls to police were ignored and social workers told me the girls were making lifestyle choices. At the time I thought I was going mad. How could no one see we were in the midst of a major crisis where girls were being raped on an industrial scale?

By now, I would turn up for work at 8.30am to find a huddle of shivering girls sitting on the steps. They were aged 13 and 14. Their hair was matted, their clothes were dirty and they looked terrible. But you didn’t really notice this, as the only thing that properly registered was the fear in their eyes. They had been taken to Saddleworth Moor the night before, violently raped by a gang of men and thrown out of the car. They had walked miles through the night from the South Pennines back to Rochdale to wait for our centre to open.

We’d make them a cup of tea, take them to a sexual health clinic to test for and treat sexually transmitted infections and call the police. But, again, the police didn’t want to know.

On another occasion, a 14-year-old girl with learning difficulties told me a man in his 40s had poured petrol on her and threatened to set her on fire unless she performed a sexual act for him. These girls were in terrible danger.

Too many children are susceptible to grooming because they have frighteningly low self-esteem

There is so much to be shocked at looking back at these cases. How it took the police so long to act to protect children from evil criminals, why social services showed wilful blindness in ignoring what was happening and how so many agencies had collectively failed to act much earlier. The damage that has been done is incalculable. Drug abuse, suicide attempts and psychiatric disorders often follow this kind of abuse. And we should never forget that children have only one chance at childhood.

I cried when I first saw Three Girls. The girls’ brave struggle to bring these criminals to justice is told with sensitivity and insight. It’s ultimately a story about childhood that ought to spark a national debate about the protections every child should be entitled to.

What happened in Rochdale and in other towns across the country where grooming gangs were exposed and caught was a national scandal. Thankfully, it’s a scandal that is out in the open now, and has become a proper police priority. But as policy debate centres on changes to the protective agencies, we should not lose sight of the fact that too many children are susceptible to grooming because they have frighteningly low self-esteem.

The girls I worked with on a daily basis just wanted someone to pay them attention. When I would compliment them on their hair or nail varnish, they would light up and grow in stature. Entire communities are full of boys and girls like this; with little self-worth, no stake in society and weak relationships. These are prime targets for grooming gangs.

There have been a number of welcome changes to the law since the Rochdale grooming scandal saw nine men convicted of child abuse offences in 2012. Police forces have been ordered to treat child sexual abuse as equivalent to terrorism and the home secretary has admitted this crime is “not going away”. But the best way to put grooming gangs out of business is to start building resilient, confident communities. We should be ashamed that there are still too many places with poor life chances, lacking in basic community facilities where girls go without dinner at school to save their money to buy a bottle of vodka on a Friday night.

These places have been ignored for too long and this neglect makes them fertile territory for criminals. Better-resourced agencies, properly trained police and stronger laws around child abuse are just the beginning. Only when we start strengthening communities, building people’s confidence and giving marginalised kids a proper future can we finally say we are delivering on child protection.

• Three Girls is on BBC1 over three consecutive nights from Tuesday 16 May to Thursday 18 May at 9pm