Sara Louise Rowbotham (MBE) is a community leader and former health worker in

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England, and the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale. In the United Kingdom 2021 Census, 2021 Census, the town had a population of 111,261, compared to 223,773 for the wid ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, notable for helping to expose the child sex abuse ring there. She was a local councillor and 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 borough council and provides the majority of local government services in the borough. The council has be ...

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

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

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

Biography

Rowbotham was born in

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

. 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. Following the screening of '' Three Girls'' in mid-May 2017, a petition was started at

Change.org Change.org is a website which allows users to create and sign petitions in an attempt to advance various social causes by raising awareness and influencing decision-makers. The site is a US-based for-profit company and claims to have 551 million ...

calling for her to be formally recognised 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 Television in the United Kingdom, 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 production was filmed a ...

''. 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 founded as the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (LSPCC) by Thomas Agnew on 19 April 1883. The NSPCC lobbies t ...

(NSPCC) in October 2018. In the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(MBE) "for services to young people".

In media

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 ''Dinnerladies (TV series), dinnerladies'', a sitcom on BBC One (1998–2000), as List of Shameless (British TV series) characters#Vero ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowbotham, Sara Living people Labour Party (UK) councillors Councillors in Greater Manchester People from Rochdale UK councillors 2015–2019 Year of birth missing (living people) Women councillors in England Members of the Order of the British Empire