Child grooming victim reveals her mum sold her for sex in alleyway when she was just 12 – and gave her £10 to keep quiet
Tyne Yates was still wearing her school uniform and bag when her body was sold for £250 in Blackpool, Lancs
A WOMAN whose own mother sold her for sex in an alleyway wearing her school uniform at the age of 12 has revealed her downward spiral after the ordeal.
Tyne Yates said child prostitution was just part of a life of depravity growing up in Blackpool, Lancs.
The 29-year-old was friends with cold case murder victim Charlene Downes and was interviewed for a three-part documentary on Channel 5 called The Murder of Charelene Downes.
Charlene vanished in November 2003, aged 14. Two local takeaway workers stood trial for Charlene’s murder in May 2007 but were not convicted.
The prosecution claimed that Charlene’s body had been cut up and minced into kebabs, her bones crushed into tile grouting.
Tyne described how despite her middle-class background, she and Charlene had been passed around child grooming and gangs.
She claims her life of exploitation first started when she was sold for sex by her drug addict mother.
I still had my school uniform on and my bag. She told me everything would be OK and it was all just part of life.
Tyne Yates
She said: "My mum was different to most of the other mums. She was a heroin addict and a working girl.
"I looked up to her. She was my mum and I loved her.
"Then one day a man approached us in the street and asked her for sex. He said he wanted me and not her and that he’d pay a lot extra. I remember being led down the alley way by mum.
"I still had my school uniform on and my bag. She told me everything would be OK and it was all just part of life. I believed her.
"Afterwards, she gave me my cut. A ten-pound note. I felt rich. It all seems so sad and pathetic. But that’s what happened to me."
LIFE OF GROOMING WITH MURDER VICTIM
Tyne said the experience set her off on a dark path which eventually saw her turn to prostitution herself.
She said: "I went from being a kid looking for excitement to being passed around groups of men for sex.
"As I got older, turned my back on my family, I got hooked on drugs and arrested countless times. I ended up a street prostitute, just like my mum.
"It all started with bunking off school and hanging around in the town centre, just like Charlene Downes and a lot of other young girls.
"It torments me knowing that I probably know her killers. We were doing the same things with the same people at the same time.
"When I look into the eyes of some of the men that prowl the streets preying on vulnerable young girls, I can’t help but wonder if one of them was the last face that she ever saw.
It torments me knowing that I probably know her killers. We were doing the same things with the same people at the same time.
Tyne on her friend Charlene Downes
"Something horrible happened to her and it could easily have been me.";
Tyne was the granddaughter of Ivan and Sylvia Taylor, both former mayors of the town.
The Taylors, both aged 79, had adopted Yates' mother Lisa as a child and later set her up in her own home.
Her mother, Lisa died in 2007 aged 38.
Tyne said she became friends with Charlene, a working-glass girl from the seaside resort and the pair would sell themselves for pocket money in the town.
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She said: “Sometimes I still get scared when I think about what happened to Charlene.
“I hope one day the mystery will be solved, Karen and her family can have some justice and my beautiful friend, Charlene will be at peace.
After a planned retrial over Charlene's murder was abandoned in 2008, her parents began to give up hope of ever finding the truth.
- The Murder of Charlene Downes is on Channel 5 at 9pm on Tuesday
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