The Grooming Files is an independent investigative platform examining grooming, sexual harm, online exploitation, and systemic safeguarding failure — through survivor-led journalism, forensic insight, and real-world case analysis.
This work does not sensationalise abuse.
It documents it.
The Grooming Files exists to expose patterns — not just individual offenders, but the institutional blind spots, cultural conditions, and repeated failures that allow harm to continue unchecked.
About Me
Survivor. Researcher. Journalist.
My name is Sophie Lewis.
I am a survivor, a journalist, and a social science researcher specialising in criminology and forensic psychology. I hold a BA (Hons) in Social Sciences and am trained in analysing offender behaviour, grooming dynamics, and systemic harm.
I created The Grooming Files because too much reporting around grooming is either sanitised, sensationalised, or structurally blind.
What's missing is the inside view — the survivor perspective combined with analytical rigour.
That is where my work sits.
My approach is grounded in:
- Survivor testimony
- Direct behavioural analysis
- Message-based evidence and digital forensics
- Psychological pattern recognition
- Institutional and safeguarding critique
My work focuses on how grooming actually works — how offenders escalate, how systems fail to intervene, and how survivors are repeatedly ignored or retraumatised by the very structures meant to protect them.
Survivor-Led, Not Sensational
I do not run sting operations.
I do not pose as children.
I do not engage in vigilante activity.
This work centres on:
- Adult survivor experiences
- Offender self-disclosure and behavioural patterns
- Exposure-seeking dynamics
- Online grooming culture
- Safeguarding failures across platforms, institutions, and communities
In several cases, offenders have voluntarily come forward, consented to interviews, and provided extensive message logs. These cases are handled within strict ethical boundaries and documented in the public interest.
The aim is understanding, prevention, and accountability — not spectacle.
Why This Work Matters
Grooming is rarely a single moment.
It is a process.
A psychological, emotional, and behavioural escalation that thrives on silence, confusion, power imbalance, and institutional inertia.
Most survivors are not believed the first time they speak.
Many are never believed at all.
The Grooming Files exists to:
- Document what survivors were never allowed to say
- Show how grooming patterns repeat across cases
- Challenge safeguarding myths and media oversimplification
- Push for earlier recognition, better prevention, and real accountability
This work is often uncomfortable.
That is intentional.
Ethics & Boundaries
- All survivor submissions are 18+ only
- Anonymous submissions are protected
- Identifiers are removed unless explicit consent is given
- Legal and ethical considerations are prioritised
- No content is published for shock value
This platform is survivor-led, not trauma-extractive.
Beyond The Grooming Files
Alongside investigative journalism, I also develop trauma-integration and shadow-work frameworks through Shadowborn, a separate transformation platform.
While the two bodies of work are distinct, they share a core foundation:
pattern recognition, truth-telling, and a refusal to look away.
I am not interested in being palatable.
I am interested in being accurate.
Contact & Submissions
If you are an adult survivor (18+) and wish to share your story — anonymously or openly — you can contact me directly.
If you are a journalist, researcher, or safeguarding professional seeking collaboration, serious enquiries are welcome.
Email: sophie.editorial@outlook.com
This work is not easy.
But it is necessary.
And it will continue.