Bilborough College staff have spoken of their pride in ex-student Molly Windsor after she scooped the leading actress honour at the BAFTA TV Awards.
Molly won the award for her role in Three Girls, a drama about three victims of the Rochdale sex abuse scandal, beating Hollywood actresses Claire Foy and Thandie Newton.
Collecting the prize from Sherlock star Martin Freeman, Molly, 20, of Breaston, said: “Three Girls was born out of the courage of the real three girls, and the real Holly, Amber and Ruby who told their story over and over and over and told it again to us. I just want to say thank you for recognising how selfless that is and how brave that is.”
The drama also won the award for best mini-series.
Writer Nicole Taylor dedicated the prize to health worker Sara Rowbotham and former detective Maggie Oliver, who helped blow the whistle on the scandal, as well as the real three victims and their families.
Jill Shield, Molly’s former form tutor, said she was an incredible talent.
She said: “I was looking out yesterday to see if she’d won because I knew that she’d been nominated. It’s extraordinary. She was always so modest and understated about her talent. During our meetings she always used to tell me about everything that she was doing with her acting. She was always very pragmatic and her plan B was to get good grades in case acting didn’t work out but she was very driven and acting was what she wanted to do. She wasn’t interested in university.
“She was an absolute delight and had her head screwed on and worked really hard. I’m so proud of her and so pleased. I watched Three Girls and she was so convincing in that role and for someone so young to play such a difficult part was incredible.”
Chris Bradford, Bilborough College Principal, congratulated Molly on winning the award.
He said: “This is an incredible achievement by Molly. She should be very proud of herself. At Bilborough we’re regularly amazed and humbled by the fabulous feats of so many of our former students in different walks of life of which this is a particularly high profile example. We’re sure Molly will go from strength to strength.”