When Sarah Wilson was 11 years old, a 30-year-old man raped her in the school playground at night. The paedophilic attack was so traumatic that Sarah, who had no understanding of sex, was left numb to tears. When she returned home that night, she felt not only a deep sense of shame and disgust but also a fear that normal life was now over.

Sarah’s rape was the grotesque beginning of her systematic grooming and sexual assault. She was plied with alcohol and drugs, driven across the country to be raped by multiple men in one night, and ignored by both the police and social services. Her story is not unique. Sarah is one of at least 1,400 children who were sexually exploited by gangs of predominantly Pakistani-origin men in Rotherham from 1997 to 2013. But when a report last summer finally revealed the scale of abuse in Rotherham, Sarah’s only surprise was that someone finally cared.

Last week, a National Crime Agency investigation announced that around 300 suspects had been identified, including two serving or former Rotherham councillors. Taxi drivers, who were involved in trafficking victims, have also come under scrutiny. Around 25 taxi drivers no longer have licenses due to child abuse concerns, and hundreds of taxi drivers are planning to strike in response to rules requiring them to install CCTV inside their cabs.

As Rotherham finally begins to address almost two decades of paedophilic grooming, Sarah Wilson, who’s now 23 years old, has written an autobiography, Violated, revealing the details of her abuse. Here she sits down with The Telegraph to tell her story.